Suprisingly little is known to this day about Anna (Abelevna) Kagan’s oeuvre. She studied for Kazimir Malevich in 1919-22 at the art college in Vitebsk, Belarus. Vitebsk was the USSR's answer to Paris at the time. Malevich and his suprematist visions made a deep impression on Kagan. She took part in several exhibitions with the group UNOVIS “for the new art”. After Lenin’s death, the authorities clamped down on avant-garde exhibitions and demanded that all artists conform to the Stalinist style of social realism. But Anna Kagan continued to create abstract paintings the rest of her life. In the 1920s and 30s, she made abstract compositions on ceramic goods, prints and textile designs.