Ilya Grigoryevich Chashnik was born in Lyutsin of the Vitebsk province (now Ludzin, Latvia) on June 13 (29), 1902. In 1919-1922 he studied in Vitebsk Art School, first under Marc Chagall, and under El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich. He was one of the most loyal students and colleagues of Kazimir Malevich in Suprematism, and a member of the Unovis art group. In 1922 he moved with Kazimir Malevich to Petrograd, where they both worked in Ginkhuk (State Institute of Art Culture), Decorative Institute and the State Institute of Art History. He worked in the field of technical, industrial and architectural design.
Ilya Chashnik was a porcelain artist at the Lomonosov Porcelain Plant in Leningrad. Jointly with Nikolai Suetin he embodied principles of Suprematism in applied arts.
Suprematism was not just a trend of art for Ilya Chashnik, but it was deep in the heart of the artist, who lived with revolutionary ideas in painting.
His last words were: “Say to Kazimir Malevich that I died as an artist of the new art”.  
Ilya Chashnik died of peritonitis at the age of 26, in Leningrad on March 4, 1929.