Hermitage Receives Malevich's Black Square

On 24 May, 2002, the State Hermitage Museum received the painting of Kazimir S. Malevich Black Square (oil on canvas, 53.5 x 53.5 cm), previously owned by OAO AB Incombank.
After the artist's death this and other paintings passed to his widow. After the widow of Malevich died in 1991, Black Square, Self-portrait and Wife's Portrait were inherited by his niece. Later, Self-portrait and Wife's Portrait were sold to OAO AB Incombank. Black Square was received by the Bank as a gift in 1993.
In April 1994, Black Square was loaned by Incombank to the State Tretyakov Gallery for the exhibition ''Europe-Europe'' in Germany.
The painting was bought for the State Hermitage Museum by the Culture Ministry of the Russian Federation. $1 mln. required to buy Black Square was donated to the Culture Ministry by the famous patron of arts Vladimir O. Potanin, head of the holding company Interros, which has on many occasions provided financial support to the Hermitage projects. Due to the company, interiors of the Foreign Ministry in the General Staff and Chariot of Glory above the Arch or the General Staff were restored and Pages from the Hermitage History publications are put out.
Price of the painting was determined by an independent expert, Georgy A. Putnikov of the Collegium of Experts and Appraisers of Jewelry and Antiques, whose qualification is attested to by the recognition of his conclusions by Lloyds insurers.
When Black Square was offered for sale, the Culture Ministry decided to purchase it for one of the Russian museums. This right of the Culture Ministry is set forth in the Culture Law of the Russian Federation, No. 3612-1 of 09.10.1992, Par. 35. On 23 April, 2002, the Culture Ministry issued Order No. 625, ''On Use of the State's Preemptive Right to Purchase the Painting of K. Malevich Black Square''. Pursuant to the Order, the State Hermitage Museum on behalf of the Russian Culture Ministry made an agreement with OAO AB Incombank and the Ministry's Museum Department handed Black Square over to the Museum where it will be henceforth kept. After the Hermitage Director Mikhail B. Piotrovsky and the Incombank receiver A.V. Yesin signed the sale agreement on 25 April, 2002, Incombank received on 26 April, 2002, an equivalent of one million US dollars. They also executed a report of acceptance of Black Square by the Hermitage.
Earlier, in February 2002 the Creditor Committee of OAO AB Incombank decided to provide Malevich's painting to the Hermitage for an exhaustive examination.
The Examination Department examined all the materials of the painting, canvas, priming and paints (including accidental smears) and the artist's signature on the reverse. The manner (brushwork) was compared with other paintings of Kazimir Malevich. The examination of the technique and materials confirmed the authorship and time of the painting.
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (1878-1935), avant-garde painter, founder of suprematism, a version of geometrical abstract art, was born near Kiev in a Polish family. In 1904-1905 he attended classes at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow. He successively was involved with impressionism, fauvism and cubism and then in Munich worked together with Wassily Kandinsky in Der Blauer Reiter. 1915 inaugurated the ''suprematic period'' of Malevich. His Black Square was already then taken by many as a symbolic gesture or a nihilistic declaration of the ''end of painting'' which is to be overcome to get rid both of ''naturalism'' and ''minimalism'' of fine arts rather than a work of art. In his manifesto ''From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism... New Realism of Painting'', published in 1916, Malevich wrote, ''The savage was the first to lay down the principle of naturalism... We will not see a pure painting before the habit to see in canvases depictions of nature, Virgins or shameless Venuses is abandoned...'' Malevich believed himself to be an ''apostle'' of the future art. In 1920, with the support of Marc Chagall he founded in Vitebsk UNOVIS (group of ''Founders of New Art'') and in 1923 headed in Petrograd GINKhUK (State Institute of Fine Arts). In 1926-1927 Malevich worked at the Bauhaus in Dessau and organized exhibitions in Berlin and Warsaw. In 1929 A. Lunacharsky appointed Malevich ''People's Commissar for Fine Arts'' but in the next year his exhibition in Kiev was prohibited. Malevich died in Leningrad in 1935.

Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky introducing the painting of K. Malevich

Viktor M. Faybisovich, Director of the New Acquisitions Department, receiving the painting