Composition of Three Forms. Unovis

Sergei Yakovlevich Senkin (Pokrovskoe-Streshnevo -now Moscow-, July 13th, 1894; Moscow, April 12th, 1963) attended the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow (1914-1915) and studied at the Free State Art Studios (SVOMAS) at Malevich’s studio (1918-1919). In 1920 he joined the army at Ekaterinenburg in the Urals, as an artist-designer and continued his education at the Higher State Art-Technical Studios (VKHUTEMAS). As a painter, from 1918 to 1922 he followed the Suprematist style, and together with Klutsis and Lissitzky, developed a separate parameter based on the formalistic principles of Malevich’s system, without sharing though his teacher’s philosophical dogma. During the years 1920-1921 he produced a series of spatial constructions based on those principles. In 1921 he held an exhibition at the artistic club “Cézanne” entitled Thirty works. Realism, Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism, and Spatial Suprematism. In 1922 his suprematist works were presented at the “Association of New Trends in Art” exhibition in Petrograd and in 1923 he wrote an article with Klucis for the journal LEF (Left Front of the Arts) entitled «Workshop of the Revolution”. In the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a designer of mass celebrations, as a graphic designer and poster artist. He made extensive use of photomontage. In 1928 he collaborated with Lissitzky and made a large “photofresco” for the Soviet Pavilion at the Pressa in Cologne. During the 1940s and 1950s he worked mainly as a designer.