1873 Bolshiye Gorki
1943 Moskau

Ivan Vasilievich Kliun (or Kliunkov) was born in Bolshiye Gorky near Kiev in 1873. He first studied at an academy in Kiev and later arts in Warsaw. After his studies he moved to Moscow in 1900 where he met Malevich. In 1910 he participates in the Moscow Salon. Ivan Vasilievich Kliun, who was very much interested in the Suprematist experiments of Malevich and other avant-garde trends, wrote a Suprematist manifest with Malevich and Menkov. Abstract art had its breakthrough in Moscow with the 0.10 Exhibition in 1915, where, alongside Ivan Vasilievich Kliun, artists such as Malevich, Tatlin, Nadezhda Udalzova, Ljubov Popova and Ivan Puni took part in. Here, for the first time, Suprematist paintings were exhibited. After this event Kliun took part in different exhibitions of the Suprematists who had significant influence on the artistic movements De Stijl and Bauhaus. Kliun became professor for painting in Vkhutemas, took on a puristic style in the 1920s. Ivan Vasilievich Kliun died in Moscow in 1943.