Attended Kherson Agricultural School 1896-1902 before enrolling at the Kiev Art School 1902; was expelled in 1905 with his friend Archipenko. Also studied under Svyatoslavsky, then in Moscow under Rerberg and Yuon, before resuming at the Kiev Art School from 1908 to 1911, when he travelled to Finland. In 1914 showed 88 works at the Kiev exhibition ‘The Ring’ and wrote his groundbreaking treatise Painting & Elements, analyzing line, form, colour and plane (the manuscript is now in the Museum of Literary Archives in Kiev). Taught in Armenia 1915, returning to Kiev in 1917. Involved in Agitprop 1919-21, then taught at the Kiev Art Academy for the rest of his life. In 1927 embarked on a revolutionary triptych, Sawyers, but died before completing it from the tuberculosis that had plagued him throughout the 1920s.
