Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was a seminal artist, painter, illustrator, and costume and set designer who was one of the most important figures in early 20th century Russian art.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s Local Legend was a seminal artist, painter, illustrator, and costume and set designer who was one of the most important figures in early 20th century Russian art. Known for her pioneering fusion of Russian folk influences with European Modernism, she played a major role in defining a unique Russian style not reliant on trends from the West. Today, her paintings are highly sought after and bring some of the highest prices for works by women artists. Let’s talk about Natalia Goncharova.
Natalia Sergeenya Goncharova was born on June 21, 1881 in the town of Negaevo, Russia. Her father was from an aristocratic Russian family, and worked as an architect and mathematician. Her mother was from a very well-connected family in the Russian Orthodox Church.
During her early years, Natalia was educated mostly by her mother and grandmother. In 1892, when Natalia was 11, her family moved to Moscow where she attended formal school for the first time at the Fourth Gymnasium for Young Ladies.
After graduating from school in 1898, Natalia began going to the studio of a local Moscow sculptor. There she learned about the vast universe of artistic movements and schools of art, like German Jugendstil and the English Arts and Crafts Movement, and the diversity of ways to express beauty through art. She fell in love with the medium of sculpture.
In 1901, Natalia enrolled in the sculpture program at the prestigious Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. It was there that she met the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life. Mikhail Larionov was a brash and incredibly talented young painter. Soon after the two met, Natalia switched from sculpture to painting and never looked back.
During their years at school, Natalia and Mikhail were heavily influenced by the variety of artistic movements that fell under the umbrella of European Modernism, such as Cubism and Futurism. These movements were mostly headquartered in Paris, and held deep sway even in Moscow. But in 1908, Natalia and Larionov began embracing elements of the Russian folk art they grew up with and merging them with concepts of European Modernism.
In 1909, Natalia, Larionov, and a number of their contemporaries founded a radical exhibition group of avant-garde artists called Jack of Diamonds. Active until 1911, Jack of Diamonds is considered one of the most important artistic societies in the early Russian avant-garde movement. At the group’s exhibitions, it was clear that Natalia’s work was increasingly informed by Russian folk art and Russian block drawings, traditional children’s toys, and medieval icons.
In 1912, Natalia and Mikhail left Jack of Diamonds to start another radical exhibition called The Donkey’s Tail.
Early the following year, Natalia and Mikhail developed a new school of abstract art called rayonism, a visual combination of cubism and futurism that attempts to capture the spatial qualities of light or reflected light on a two-dimensional canvas. The two published a manifesto together called “Rayonists and Futurists: a Manifesto”
In 1913, Natalia received her first major solo show in Moscow where she exhibited nearly 800 works in an astonishingly wide variety of styles and media -- so much so, that a famous Russian writer of the era coined her style “everythingism.” The common thread in many of these works was the expression of a particularly Russian identity. The retrospective represented the apex of Natalia’s fusion of Russian folk art and abstract art concepts.
The preface to the exhibition catalogue stated, “I have passed through all that the West can offer at the present time, and all that my country has assimilated from the West. I now shake the dust from my feet and distance myself from the West.”
Natalia’s artistic endeavors expanded well beyond the canvas. She began doing scenery and costume design for the Kamerny Theatre in Moscow, and quickly gained a brilliant reputation for her work. In 1914, Natalia was hired by Sergei Diaghilev of the legendary Ballets Russes in Paris to work on the design for the first Paris production of the ballet The Golden Cockerel. The show was a massive hit and Natalia received great praise for her byzantine-influenced vision. She went on to design many acclaimed productions for the Ballets Russes.
Following the end of World War I in 1918, Natalia and Mikhail moved to Paris for good. For the subsequent 30 years, Natalia painted, illustrated books, taught art, and continued to design major ballet and theater productions in Paris and across Europe. She also continued exhibiting her paintings in major museums, including the Tate in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Natalia and Mikhail fell on hard times and lived in poverty and relative obscurity. They got married in 1955, after spending almost their entire lives together.
In 1961, the Arts Council of Great Britain held a major retrospective featuring both Natalia and Mikhail’s works together. It was Natalia’s last show.
On October 17th, 1962, Natalia passed away. She was 81 years old.
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