Did you know Kazimir Malevich created the most impractical tea set ever?
"This is not a teapot; but the idea of a teapot!" This was how the creator of the ‘Black Square’ painting responded when told it was impossible to actually drink tea from the set he had created.
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the former Imperial Porcelain Factory stopped producing bourgeois tableware adorned with swirls and floral patterns and began manufacturing pieces featuring revolutionary propaganda motifs. And avant-garde artists were hired to design this new, ideologically correct porcelain. In 1923, Kazimir Malevich was invited to the factory, where he designed a tea set – though it wasn't a tea set in the usual sense of the word.
Pure colors, straight lines, hemispherical cups with rectangular handles – there were no playful flourishes or frills; the design was austere and minimalist. White porcelain turned out to be the perfect "canvas" onto which Suprematist compositions could be transferred – three-dimensional models of geometric shapes and forms. It instantly provided the necessary volume, transforming every piece into an avant-garde object.
Just a few months later, the teapot and cups were displayed in a store window on Nevsky Prospekt. Drinking tea from them was utterly impossible – but, then again, the set was never intended for actual use.
