Schwarzes Kreuz

In December 1915, with Russia deep in war, Malevich hung this in a Petrograd show he called 0.10. He had just invented what he named Suprematism, painting cut down to bare geometric shapes floating on white. The Black Cross came out of the black square he showed beside it: divide a square into two bars and turn one across the other, and you get this. He hung his canvases high in the corner of the room, the spot where a Russian home traditionally kept its holy icon. The painting then vanished for about 60 years and only resurfaced in 1975. It now hangs in Paris.