Natalia Goncharova

Natalia Goncharova was born on July 3 in 1881 in the village of Ladyzhino (or Nagaevo), Tula province, Russian Empire.

The future artist belonged to the old noble family of “Pushkin’s” Goncharovs: she was a cousin of the poet’s great-granddaughter.

As a free student, she entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, attended the class of impressionist sculptor P. Trubetskoy. S. Volnukhin became her second teacher. She met M. Larionov, about whom she later said, “We met and then never parted”.

She went to the Crimea and Tiraspol. The artist returned with watercolour and pastel paints from there. Art collectors Morozov and Ryabushinsky purchased some of her paintings. Soon, she began studying in the painting class of Korovin at the insistence of Larionov (“You have eyes for colour, but you are busy with shapes,” M. Tsvetaeva wrote down the artist’s words). However, she did not say goodbye to sculpture – the artist received a silver medal for animalistic works in 1904 (she won the second medal for the sculpture in 1907).

Participated in the Autumn Salon, visited a retrospective exhibition of P. Gauguin in Paris. Leaving impressionism, she became interested in fauvism and tried to paint in a cubist manner. Being intensively engaged in painting, she participated in various shows with the Moscow Association of Artists and the Stefanos group, as well as in the Russian Art Exhibition of S. Diaghilev and others.

In Moscow, gave private lessons at the Mashkov’s studio of painting and drawing. At the invitation of Burliuk, she participated in the exposition “Link” (Kyiv, Kherson, Yekaterinograd, Petersburg and Vilno) and an exposition at the Salon of the magazine “Golden Fleece” (Moscow).

Took part in the Jack of Diamonds exhibition. Her first small personal vernissage opened in the hall of the circle of the Society of Free Aesthetics, where Goncharova presented 22 of her works. The exposition closed the next day because of the painting “The Model Woman on a Blue Background”. The police confiscated several works, and Goncharova was judged for “pornography”, but was acquitted.

Goncharova joined the Blue Horseman Association (Munich), participated in their exhibition. Exhibitions were held in Rome (futuristic), London (post-impressionist) and Berlin (Sturm gallery, avant-garde). She exhibited her paintings at the “Donkey’s Tail”. Illustrated works of Kruchyonikh and Khlebnikov (the poem “The Game in Hell), where black and white in the energetic, even rude graphics of Goncharova were opposing principles. Designing the cover of the collection “The World from the End”, she used the collage technique.

Her solo exhibition that included 750 paintings was held in Moscow with the release of the first catalog-monograph by Ilya Zdanevich. The couple held a similar large exhibition in St. Petersburg six months later. She starred in the film “Drama in Cabaret No. 13”, from which the only shot survived, where half-naked Natalia in paints was in Larionov’s hands. In the motherland of the artist, the exhibitions “Target” and “No. 4” were held; she also participated in the exposition of the First German Autumn Salon abroad.

Started working as a stage designer. On the recommendation of Alexandre Benois, Sergei Diaghilev invited the couple to Paris, where in addition to working with the theater they held a personal exhibition at the Guillaume Apollinaire gallery, highly estimated by the press and critics. The following year, the vernissage of Goncharova took place in Russia. After creating the set design at the Tairov Chamber Theater, which was highly praised by Meyerhold, Goncharova and Larionov left for Paris, as it turned out, for good.

Collaborated with the Myrbor fashion house, where she worked with others on collections of paintings by Picasso and Leger. She created with Larionov doll sketches for the Slonim-Sazonova Theater.

Received French citizenship. Almost every year she took part in the Salon of Independents and continued to design many plays in Europe and America.

Not being a couple for a long time but remaining friends and colleagues, Goncharova and Larionov decided to marry to preserve their common creations. It was bequeathed to Mikhail’s second wife A. Tomilina with the condition that the paintings would be returned to their homeland; she did it in 1989 (the gift was received by the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery).

The Arts Council of England organized a large-scale exhibition of Goncharova and Larionov in London. A year later, after the death of the artist, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris devoted a lesser retrospective exposition to the spouses.

Natalia Goncharova died on October 17 in 1962 in Paris, France.