Curated playlist
20th-century Russian painters
- Marc ChagallMarc Chagall fled Europe in 1941 on a ship carrying 119 refugee children. He taught them drawing.
- Alexei LeonovAlexei Leonov's spacesuit swelled in space until he could not fit back inside. He let air out through a valve.
- Nicholas RoerichPainter Nicholas Roerich was held in Tibet for five months while the world thought he was lost.
- Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky quit a law career at age 30 to enroll in an art academy in Munich. He became a pioneer of abstraction.
- Vladimir MayakovskyPoet Vladimir Mayakovsky once threw tea at his audiences. He later wrote propaganda posters for the Communist Party.
- Ilya RepinIlya Repin painted the composer Mussorgsky four days before he died. Repin then sold the portrait to pay for a monument.
- Kazimir MalevichIn 1915, Kazimir Malevich hung a black square where Russian homes kept their icons.
- Natalia GoncharovaNatalia Goncharova walked Moscow's streets with painted cheeks, handing out a manifesto.
- Mikhail VrubelMikhail Vrubel stepped off a train in 1884 dressed like a Venetian from a painting.
- El LissitzkyEl Lissitzky made a tank poster while dying of tuberculosis in 1941. The artist urged Soviet people to build more tanks.