BILBAO, SPAIN.- For the first time in our country the exhibition gathers over one hundred works by Kasimir Malevich (Kiev, 1879-Saint Petersburg, 1935), the founder of suprematism and one of the key figures in the European avant-garde. Among the institutions which have collaborated on the project are the Russian State Museum of Saint Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow and the National Museum of Modern Art - the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Malevich is one of the most important artists in the 20th century. His suprematist theories and works paved the way towards a type of art freed from the burden of the object and, consequently towards total abstraction. The influence of his paintings, drawings, architectural designs and writings can still be felt today and it can be noted particularly in several generations of Basque artists of whom Jorge Oteiza is a paradigm.

The exhibition, which gives us an overall, chronological view of the artist’s work, includes his first impressionist sketches, symbolist and fauvist paintings, images of peasants from 1911 and 1912 and cubo-futurist compositions. It also shows the preparatory drawings for the costumes and the scenery of the opera, Victory over the Sun, preliminary to total abstraction and the suprematist works among which can be seen the emblematic Red Square (1915) and Black Square (c. 1923) from the Russian State Museum of Saint Petersburg, and a good number of post-suprematist works. The selection ends with works carried out towards 1930 which are representative of the return to figuration and peasant iconography. Also on exhibition are eleven “architectons" and a wide selection of documentary material such as books, photographs, lithographs and the artist’s original testament.