Surviving War and Peace: The Long Road to Recovering the Malevich Paintings

Spiegler, H. (2009) ‘Surviving War and Peace: The Long Road to Recovering the Malevich Paintings’, The Journal of Art Crime, Spring 2009, 3-8.

In 1927, Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, the father of “Suprematism”, considered the first systematic school of abstract painting in modern art, traveled to Poland and Germany with over 100 artworks in order to promote his radical artistic theories and non-objective painting in Europe. After exhibiting the works there, Malevich was called back to the Soviet Union and left his artworks in Germany with friends for safekeeping until his eventual return to the West. Malevich died without ever being able to return to Germany to pick up his artworks. After an epic struggle, 81 years later, his heirs were able to right the historical wrong and recover five significant artworks from the city of Amsterdam.