Pavel Filonov actively rejected the tenets of Picasso and Braque's Cubism on the basis that these artists and those who followed them saw the world in the all too limited terms of colour and form with an overemphasis on the mechanical. Strongly opposed to urbanization, Filonov consistently placed Nature, and by extension Man, at the center of his work. This distinct approach explains to a large extent the pervasive presence of the human form in his compositions (heads in the case of Filonov's first serious painting completed in the winter of 1910-1911) even as his work became progressively more abstract.

Born in Moscow, a precocious child who drew from the age of three or four, Filonov gained admission into the St. Pete...