The State Russian Museum, formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III, on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, is the world's largest depository of Russian fine art. It is also one of the largest art museums in the world with total area over 30 hectares. In 2022 it attracted 2,651,688 visitors, ranking twelfth on list of most-visited art museums in the world.

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist, whose pioneering work and writing influenced the development of abstract art in the 20th century. He was born in Kiev, modern-day Ukraine, to an ethnic Polish family. His concept of Suprematism sought to develop a form of expression that moved as far as possible from the world of natural forms (objectivity) and subject matter in order to access "the supremacy of pure feeling" and spirituality. Active primarily in Russia, Malevich was a founder of the artists collective UNOVIS and his work has been variously associated with the Russian avant-garde and the Ukrainian avant-garde, and he was a central figure in the history of modern art in Central and Eastern Europe more broadly.