| Ilya Grigorevich Chashnik | |
| Birth Date: | June 26, 1902 |
| Birth Place: | Lucyn, Russian Empire |
| Death Date: | March 4, 1929 |
| Death Place: | Leningrad |
| Nationality: | Russian |
| Training: | UNOVIS school |
| Movement: | suprematism |
Ilya Grigorevich Chashnik (1902, Lucyn, Russian Empire, currently Ludza, Latvia - 1929, Leningrad) was a suprematist artist, a pupil of Kazimir Malevich and a founding member of the UNOVIS school.[1] [2]
Chashnik was born to a Jewish family in 1902, Lucyn, Russian Empire, currently Ludza, Latvia. He started studying in Yehuda Pen's art school at Vitebsk when he was just eleven years old.[3] He became a student of Marc Chagall. By 1918, he moved to Moscow to work in an art workshop directed by Kazimir Malevich. He returned after Malevich accepted a senior teaching position at Vitebsk School of Drawing and Painting.
Chashnik was notably able in a variety of media. Aleksandra Semenovna Shatskikh describes him as "famous for his inexhaustible inventiveness and ability to apply Suprematist principles to virtually all forms of art, including easel painting."[4] He painted, was proficient in metalwork, and designed ceramics produced at the Imperial Porcelain Factory (then known as the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory).[4] [5] Chasnik, along with Nikolai Suetin, was recruited by the factory during his time as a UNOVIS member.[6]
He died in 1929 in Leningrad, at the age of 27.
The University of Texas at Austin held an exhibition dedicated to his works in 1981.[7]