Like many works from Kazimir Malevich’s Peasant Cycle, Female Torso reflects his desire to create a painterly epos of modern events. The artist was always inspired by the subjects of peasant labour and the Russian countryside. This was the principal theme of his oeuvre and a vehicle for his thoughts on surrounding life and his own philosophy of existence.
Female Torso combines the terse plastics of folk pictures, the synthetic imagery of icon-painting and the expressive and elementary tones of Suprematism. The artist’s way of thinking and his natural inclination towards mythologism justify such a multi-faceted union.

Malevich Kazimir

Malevich, Kazimir Severinovich (1878, Kiev - 1935, Leningrad)
Painter, graphic artist, writer on art, portraitist, landscapist, abstractionist. Studied at the Kiev School of Art (1895-1896) and Fyodor Roehrberg's studio in Moscow (1906-1910). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1905). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Moscow Fellowship of Artists (from 1907), Donkey's Tail (1912), Target (1913), Der Blaue Reiter (1912), Salon des Independants (1914), Tramcar V. First Futurist Exhibition (1915) and 0,10. Last Futurist Exhibition (1915-1916). Designed the sets and costumes for the Futurist opera "Victory Over the Sun" (1913). Member of the Union of Youth (1910) and Jack of Diamonds (1910, 1916). Founded the AFFIRMES OF THE NEW ARTgroup (1920). Worked for Department of An People's Commissariat of Education (1918-1919). Director of the Museum/Institute of Artistic Culture in Petrograd/Leningrad (1923-1926).