Color lithograph, handmade velvet paper Arches 75 x 55 cm in light passe-partout size 90 x 60 cm; limited edition of 2000 copies.
Exclusive edition for the State Russian Museum of St. Petersburg confirmed with a dry museum stamp center below the composition, executed Atelier Mourlot-dry stamp "M" l.d., dry gallery stamp p.d.
Official museum edition. The Russian State Museum guards the rights to Malevich's images very strictly.
"Farmer" is one of the most iconic works from the later period of Kazimir Malevich's oeuvre, coming from the so-called Second Peasant Cycle.
After a period of radical suprematism (represented by pure geometric forms) , Malevich in the 1920s and 1930s returned to depicting human figures.
This work was created at a time when Socialist Realism was being imposed in the Soviet Union and the avant-garde was beginning to be persecuted. Malevich, himself with Polish roots and raised in the countryside, was deeply affected by the tragedy of forced collectivization. The faceless figures of the peasant are often interpreted as a symbol of the loss of subjectivity, the "machine man," or a silent witness to history.
Malevich's paintings, though seemingly simple, are extremely difficult for graphic techniques. Mourlot was famous for applying multiple layers of color to achieve an almost "oil" depth on paper. At Mourlot, artisans (lithographers) worked with experts to hand-select pigments that matched the originals from St. Petersburg magazines.
The selection of Atelier Mourlot by the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg was no accident. It's a partnership of two giants: the guardian of the largest collection of Russian avant-garde art and the workshop that defined the concept of "artistic printmaking" in the 20th century.
The oil original is located in St. Petersburg and rarely leaves the museum's walls. The offered lithograph, thanks to the presence of the seal of Mourlot and the Russian Museum, is an object of very high catalog standard.
