Ilya
Chashnick

Painter, monumentalist, graphic designer, she worked in the field of decorative and applied art. He studied at the Vitebsk pan, in 1919-1922 in folk art school - Art and practical Institute of Malevich. Member of the UNOVIS (1920). He worked in Petrograd at the Formal-theoretical Department at the Ginkhuk (1923-1926), the experimental laboratory of the Decorative Institute (1925-1926), the Committee of artistic industry VIII (1926-1927). Works Chashnik were presented at exhibitions in Vitebsk UNOVIS and Moscow, the International exhibition of decorative arts in Paris (1925), the exhibition "Artists of the RSFSR during 15 years" (1932-1933, Leningrad-Moscow).

Born in 1902 in Ļucin, Latvia, the youngest of 8 children in a very poor family. Soon afterwards, the family moved to Vitebsk. From the very beginning, Ilya liked to draw. At 11, he was forced to leave school and entered the workshop mechanics, optics, where he worked for 10 or 11 hours a day. But despite the hard work, his love of art was so strong that soon he began to pull a draw at night. By 1915, his older brothers and sisters, started to work, and Ilya were able to return to school, which he finished in 1919. He took drawing lessons at the Yehuda pen, Vitebsk painter. In 1920, Chashnik studied at Moscow VKhUTEMAS. He was associated with the art of Marc Chagall, and returned to Vitebsk in order to learn from him. Then he studied under Malevich, and graduated from the Vitebsk Practical Art Institute in 1922.

Ilya Chashnik was a member of the UNOVIS Group.

In 1921-22 he participated in UNOVIS exhibitions in Moscow and in Vitebsk; exhibition of the artists of different movements in Petrograd (1923); the international exhibition of decorative arts in Paris (1925); exhibition in Monso-Milan in 1927 (honorary?).

In 1922, the artist followed Malevitch and went to Petrograd, to join the scientific Department INHUK (Institute of artistic Culture), where he received the diploma and the title of free artist and senior teacher of the technical school.

Chashnik worked as an artist over the Petrograd China factory (1922-24); in the scientific section in the Decorative Institute (1925). He was the leader of the research on decorative art forms in China, and on the promotional emblem and architecture. He was a member of the artistic Committee of industry in the State Institute of Art History (1926-27). From 1927, he became the head of the Symposium(shop) ISORAM (decorative art of working youth).