DrawingAcademy

Article by Vladimir London

Born 11 February 1878 to a Polish family in Kiev, Kazimir Malevich is best known as one of the standard bearers of non-figurative, avant-garde art. The eldest of fourteen children (nine of whom survived to adulthood), he moved around often because of his father’s work on sugar beet plantations.

Despite his distance from formal centers of learning, the surrounding beauty and color of the Russian landscapes left an indelible impression upon him. Seeing a roof-painter and being mesmerized by way in which color transformed his grand palette, Malevich fell in love with painting. His parents humored his interest, buying him a medical brush at a pharmacy, all the while assuming he would follow in his father’s footsteps and assume a more fitting occupation. He studied at an agricultural school (his only formal education), and for the…

Article by Vladimir London, Drawing Academy tutor

Isaac Levitan, born 30 August 1860, was born near the town of Verzhbolovo, modern Virbalis, Lithuania. Raised in a poor but intellectual Jewish family, Levitan’s artistic proclivities were fostered by his father from a young age. When the artist was still young, his family moved to Moscow, where he was supported in his decision to join the Moscow College of Art, Sculpture, and Architecture. Unfortunately, his mother died in 1875 and his father only two years later, leaving Levitan orphaned and broke…

Article by Vladimir London, Drawing Academy tutor

Born 10 June 1930 in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Ilya Glazunov was raised in a family that cherished Russian history. Unfortunately, his was one of the families trapped in the city during the Nazi siege of 1942, leaving him an orphan. His uncle helped him escape to Greblo, in Novgorod, where he managed to survive until the siege was lifted in 1944.

Although the war left permanent scars upon the young man, he overcame them and entered art school, graduating to the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1951.

As Glazunov developed as an artist, he further embraced his Russian roots. In particular, he found profound inspiration in Russia’s religious traditions, the persecution of which Stalin eased during the war. The comfort found in monasteries and Christian iconography translated into…