Jack of Diamonds (artists)

Jack of Diamonds (Russian: «Бубновый валет», Romanized: Bubnovyi Valet), also called Knave Of Diamonds, was a group of avant-garde artists founded in 1910 in Moscow. The group remained active until December 1917.

The Knave of Diamonds was an exhibition that opened in Moscow in December 1910, featuring French cubist paintings by Henri Le Fauconnier, André Lhote, Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. Curated by Alexandre Mercereau, the exhibition included works of four Russian artists expelled from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture due to their "leftist tendencies". A stated objective of the exhibition was "to offer young Russian artists who find it extremely difficult to get accepted for exhibitions under the existing indolence and cliquishness of our artistic spheres, the chance to get onto the main road."

Subsequently the title was adopted by a newly formed artistic society in Moscow. Soon thereafter, this group became the largest and one of the most significant exhibition societies of the early Russian avant-garde.

The name itself was coined by Mikhail Larionov for the exhibition of 1910 because he liked the sound of it. A contemporary account included, "Organizers regard the title Knave of Diamonds as a symbol of young enthusiasm and passion, 'for the knave implies youth and the suit of diamonds represents seething blood.'"

Well-known painters that participated in the first Jack of Diamonds exhibition, in addition to the French Cubists were Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich (and later, Léopold Survage).

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