Thirty-five design drawings not previously on view are now on display in Circling the Square: Avant-garde Porcelain from Revolutionary Russia. The selection of largely unpublished and some newly-discovered preparatory designs includes examples by famous avant-garde artists such as Mikhail Adamovich and Nikolai Suetin. The highlight is a lively and colourful design for the painting of a rinsing bowl executed in 1921 by Wassily Kandinsky, one of the most influential figures in the development of abstract art. Examples of Soviet propaganda designs are also on view, such as the Red Sailor by Pyotr Vychegzhanin and Zinaida Kobyletskaya’s 1920 design with the slogan 'Long Live the VIII Congress of Soviets’.

This exhibition has been organised jointly by the State Hermitage Museum and the Courtauld Institute of Art and is sponsored by the Russian financial corporation URALSIB.

Sarah Wilson, Marketing and Events Manager