Kazimir Malevich painted this self-portrait in 1933. Malevich was the founder of the art movement called Suprematism, which deemed abstract works and basic geometric forms as the best way to express a "supremacy of pure feeling."

Born in Kiev in 1879, Kazimir Malevich died in Leningrad in 1935. Along with Suprematism, he was also a pioneer of Cubism. Malevich created architectural models, worked as a teacher and designed costumes for a futuristic opera. Guiding his work was his concept of "the non-objective world," according to which the ideal future should not be dominated by appearances and objects.

Malevich's path to abstraction consisted of various stages. Initially, he was influenced by French Impressionism. This landscape with the pink house, dated 1911, could just as well have been created by Monet or Cézanne. At that time, Moscow was known as the Paris of the East.

In the 1910s, he joined various avant-garde movements. In line with Neo-Primitivism, a term referring to a group of painters' enthusiasm for primitive art forms, Malevich painted folkloristic motifs, such as farmers with a scythe and workers in the forest. But gradually, the path toward abstraction became visible, as this painting called "Head of a Peasant Girl" demonstrates.

In Cubo-Futurism, elements of Cubism and Futurism were combined together. Malevich simplified concrete motifs into cylindrical shapes. He painted "Life in the Grand Hotel" in 1913. Cubo-Futurism brought him one step further in the direction of Suprematism, which he would later found.

Malevich took over the geometric shapes and the color symbolism of Russian folk art. He mainly used the seven colors of icon painting: black, white, yellow, blue, red, pink and green. In icon painting, the colors black and white symbolized the beginning and the end, with the entire cosmos evolving between these two poles.

At the peak of this simplification process came Malevich's "Black Square on White," created in 1915. For reasons of conservation, this icon of modernity icon must remain in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The black square stands in stark contrast to the white background, exerting a suggestive effect.

It is easy to see that Malevich's Suprematist works were painted by hand, without the use of a template. Whether crosses or floating lines on a white background, the forms always have a strong presence. That's how Malevich always retained the individual and authentic character of his art.

The utopia of a new man was omnipresent in Malevich's mind. He was not only an artist, but also a theorist and teacher. In the 1920s, he came to Berlin via Warsaw and started spreading his manifestos in German. His favorite color palette can be recognized in his theoretical studies "Organic Art Culture," shown here.

The spectacular exhibition "Kazimir Malevich and the Russian Avant-garde" was held in Bonn in 2014. The show combined works from the private collections of two friends of the artist, Nikolai Chardschijew and George Costakis, who most actively preserved his works. Their collection includes this enigmatic late painting by Malevich, in which he suddenly abandoned his abstract ideals.