David Yakerson

Born in Vitebsk, David Yakerson joined the art world as a student at Yehudah Pen’s school in that city. He later studied at the Riga Polytechnic Institute and in Moscow. Between 1919 and 1922, Yakerson returned to Vitebsk to lead the sculpture department of the Vitebsk art academy where Kazimir Malevich was working out his Suprematist principles. Deeply influenced by Malevich, Yakerson produced dozens of geometric Suprematist prints in 1920, including his Fourteen Suprematist Studies. Yakerson is remembered for his UNOVIS Cubo-Suprematist sculptures—none of which are known to have survived—and as a teacher of Soviet avant-garde sculptors.