title: Voldemārs Matvejs
text: # Voldemārs Matvejs
  
  Voldemārs Matvejs (1877–1914) was a Latvian artist and art theorist. Despite dying in 1914, he was to have a significant impact on the development of Soviet art. Nikolay Punin remarked: "If he had not died so early he would have been the first among us: he knew what was necessary for art better than the others: he saw and understood better than the rest." He was one of the founders of the Union of Youth in 1908.
  
  He had a particular interest in African art and his writing in this area has been compared with that of Carl Einstein.
  
  ## Faktura
  
  Matvejs was the art theorist who pioneered the concept of Faktura.
  
  ## Gallery
  
  * Red Roofs, Visby (ca. 1909)
  * Ancient Times (ca. 1910)
  * Yellow Square (1911)
  * View of Paris (1912)
  * Red and Black (1913)
  