Lazar Khidekel, 1904-1986

"The Russian Museum's catalogue of works from the Lazar Khidekel Society unfolds the poignant theme of the avant-garde's being nipped in the bud when the Soviet government turned against novelty and experimentation. Still in his teens, Khidekel studied in Vitebsk with Malevich and Lisitskii and then in Petrograd's Institute of Civil Engineering. In the mid 1920s he designed a worker's club based on suprematist principles, thought to be the first design to realize Malevich's ideas in architecture. The scholarly apparatus includes a chronology of the artist's life and career, an appendix of buildings he designed or codesigned, exhibitions of his works, and a bibliography." -- Summary written by John W. Emerich, Bronze Horseman Literary Agency