Maria Kazanskaya was born in 1914 in St. Petersburg to a family of Russian intellectuals. She studied painting from Vera Yermolayeva, an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, because there was no enrolment in the Academy of Arts the year she finished the school. Between 1927 and 1934, thanks to Vera Yermolayeva, Kazanskaya was part of the group of painters who worked in the genre of “plastic realism”. Their purpose was to establish a lively and perceptible balance between their own personality and the reality, with the help of their artistic means only.

Kazanskaya’s paintings are very emotional. They are full of impulsive colours, expressive lines and composition. She is considered an artist of the Russian avant-garde, an artistic movement which emerged in the revolutionary early 20^th century.

The word avant-garde was taken from military jargon, where it means the part of the army that is at the front. This role was assumed by many representatives of the movement, including Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Mikhail Larionov, Mikhail Matyushin, Pavel Kuznetsov, Vladimir Tatlin, Georgiy Yakulov, Aleksandra Ekster, and Boris Ender. Maria Kazanskaya was one of them.

The main purpose of avant-garde artists was to transform the mindset not only of certain people, but of the society as a whole. They had a sincere belief that art is capable of changing not only personal attitudes, but the whole system of people’s values and relationships.

Maria Kazanskaya studied from Vera Yermolayeva till December 1934, when she was arrested as a “participant in a counter-revolutionary group that tried to establish illegal contacts abroad and spread anti-Soviet propaganda.” Kazanskaya’s artistic path coincided with a very difficult period of historical changes and events, including the Russian revolution of 1917 and the Great Patriotic War which began in 1941. These global shocks could not but affect a person with an extraordinary mentality and self-expression. Unfortunately, Maria Kazanskaya had a very short period to develop her talent, about five years.

Kazanskaya was freed in 1935. She continued to paint for a very short time thereafter, until September 1937. The young artist died during the siege of Leningrad in 1942.

The works by Maria Kazanskaya were practically unknown to the general public until just recently.