Natalia Goncharova

(b Negayevo, Tula Province, 16 June 1881: d Paris, 17 Oct 1962). Russian painter, stage designer, printmaker and illustrator. She was a leading artist of the Russian avant-garde in the early 20th century but became a celebrity in the West through her work for SERGE DIAGHILEV and the BALLETS RUSSES. During the 1920s she played a significant role within the Ecole de Paris and continued to live and work in France until her death.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Russian painter and theatrical scenery designer Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was pivotal in the development of avant-garde Russian art during the decade prior to World War I and thereafter was an important and innovative designer of costumes and stage flats.

Russian art during the first two decades of the 20th century absorbed the new styles and philosophies of Western European art and moved to the cultural forefront. Goncharova and her husband, Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), through their work and their efforts organizing shows and artist's groups were at the center of this artistic revolution which preceded and was concurrent with that country's political upheaval.

Natalia Goncharova (sometimes spelled Gontcharova) was born in Nagaevo in central Russia. The Goncharova family had lost its fortune, based on the manufacture of linen, by the late 18th century. The renowned poet Pushkin had married one of her ancestors, Natalia Goncharova, after whom she was named. Her father was an architect. Natalia's mother's family, the Belyaevs, had produced a number of priests and were noted for being patrons of music. From 1891 to 1896 Goncharova attended the gymnasium in Moscow. In 1898, having formed her decision to be an artist, Goncharova entered the College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (Moscow) where she studied sculpture under Pavel Troubetskoi, who worked in the style of Auguste Rodin. Three years later she left the college despite having won a silver medal and not having completed the ten-year period of study of that curriculum. This coincided with her adoption of painting as her preferred medium of expression.

A Career and a Husband

By 1900 Goncharova had met her future husband, Mikhail Larionov. He had also enrolled in the college in 1898, but in the Department of Painting. Her decision to take up painting was encouraged by Larionov and by her fascination with the play of light and the harmonies of color. Like many Russian artists of her time, the first few years of the 20th century was a period of exposure to and adoption of the styles that had evolved in the capitals of Western Europe. At the time she was drawn to Impressionism and Divisionism, styles associated respectively with Monet and Seurat. Both styles emphasized not the recording of solid objects but the capturing of light (color) that was reflected back from the object to the eye. As a result, drawing tended to be loose and there was an emphasis on color, the strokes of paint. This led to a consciousness of the paint, the strokes, and the texture and pattern on the canvas. These two styles were important for freeing art from being purely representational. Artists were acquiring an awareness of art being an esthetic expression inspired by, but not dependent on, the appearances of the physical world.

In 1906 the great Russian ballet impressario Diaghilev arranged for a selection of paintings by Goncharova and Larionov to be included in the Russian section of the Salon d'Automne in Paris. Their inclusion in this recently established yearly showing of new radical art (the Fauves had their first group showing there that year) indicates that both artists were considered exemplars of trends in the avant-garde of their country. Over the next nine years, prior to her emigration from Russia, Goncharova participated in a number of important exhibitions, many of which she and Larionov organized. During this period she was also represented in the 1912 Post-Impressionist exhibition organized by Roger Fry at London's Grafton Gallery, in a one-person show (1913) of 761 works in Moscow (reduced to 249 pieces the following year when shown in St. Petersburg), and in a show at the Paul Guillaume Gallery of Paris with a catalogue by the noted critic Apollinaire.

The Style of Rayonism

The half decade which preceded the outbreak of the war was a period of rapid development in the visual arts in Russia. Goncharova was at the forefront of this. Amazingly, three distinct trends simultaneously appeared in her work: Rayonism, Neo-Primitivism, and Cubo-Futurism. The first of these is an original style conceived by Larionov and was extensively explored by Goncharova as well. Rayonism was among a number of completely abstract styles at the time in Western art. Like Impressionism, Rayonism concentrates on the light rays reflecting off objects. The space in a Rayonist painting is not measurable but is an atmosphere charged with the energy of an infinite number of light rays either directly from the sun or, more likely, rays bouncing back and forth from the physical objects around one. From this infinity of rays were selected particular ones - the title often revealing the objects from which they had been reflected. The guiding principle is purely esthetic in that the colors are chosen for their harmony or visual effect.

For over three decades artists had been fascinated by the idea of creating a non-objective art based on the orchestration of color. If music was completely abstract and yet infinitely expressive, could not there be an art using color (instead of sound) which was equally abstract and expressive. Goncharova was among the 11 artists who signed Larionov's Rayonist Manifesto when it was published in 1913, at which time she showed Rayonist works at the Donkey's Tail and Target exhibitions Cats: Rayonist Apprehension in Pink, Black and Yellow of 1913 (New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) approaches Braque and Picasso's Analytical Cubism in its overall animated and crystalline effect, though with rich color. Instead of the fragmented interlocked shapes found in Cubism, Cats is based on long, slashing colored strokes. Rayonism was a short-lived style, having reached its end by 1914. Franz Marc, associated with the Blaue Reiter of Munich (with whom Goncharova exhibited in 1912), admired her work and painted in a manner inspired by Rayonism in 1913, perhaps due to her influence.

The Neo-Primitivism Style

Concurrent with Rayonism, Goncharova painted in a style now referred to as Neo-Primitivism. This was a phenomenon that had occurred earlier in France and elsewhere and seems related to changing political, social, and cultural aspirations. In conjunction with a democratization of political and social thought, there was often a tendency to try to discover the underlying character of national cultures by looking to traditional folk or peasant art for inspiration. Because of her family's clerical background and her having spent her youth living at a country estate, Goncharova would have been drawn to traditional religious and folk art as part of her formative experience and as the fine arts of the masses of her countrymen. This was a period when the intelligentsia came to look upon icons (Russian devotional images) as an important national cultural heritage. The great Romanov exhibition of icons (1913), many of which had been cleaned for the first time, excited many esthetically sensitive people.

Goncharova had painted religious themes for a number of years, having felt that the intensely religious sense and meaning of icons was one of the most important goals for an artist to capture in his or her work. The rich colors, dazzling decorative effects, and highly formalized and stylized character of icons had already inspired her work. Archangel (Paris, private collection) of about 1909 to 1911, the left panel of a triptych titled The Savior, in facial type and drapery pattern bears resemblance to typical aspects of icons. The emphasis on broad flat patterning, as in the angel's wings or the large rhythms of the fabric, suggests the influence of folk arts. This led Goncharova to employ a manner that was unrelated to academic practice. Besides emphasizing flat, decorative qualities, at times the paint was seemingly splashed on the surface or was applied rapidly for spontaneity of effect. The charm and naiveté that had earlier been acclaimed in the painting of Henri Rousseau appeared in Goncharova's work and were, very importantly to her, derived from native sources.

Cubo-Futurism Style

Between 1913 and 1914 Cubo-Futurism, aspects of the then-contemporary styles of Cubism and Futurism, appeared in Goncharova's painting. Cubism would have been known to Russian artists through publications, exhibitions, and collections such as those of Morozov and Shchukin. Cubism was ambivalent to color to the benefit of a new sense of structure - the fragmentation and interlocking of form and shape resulting in a uniformly animated composition in which the figure/ground relation is eliminated.

Italian Futurism also had a following in Russia in the years immediately preceding World War I. Futurism's glorification of dynamism as a constant in modern experience often led to the use of images such as large scale industry, trains, and race cars as emblems of the world rapidly transforming culturally and technologically. This is reflected in Goncharova's work Airplane over Train (Kazan Art Museum) of 1913, for example. Her Futurism, like that of the Italians, was alive with color. The sensations of motion were suggested by rhythmic repetitions of shapes or lines. The inclusion of painted words or word fragments, as if they were from signs and part of an environment through which one was passing, further aided this perception. Sound waves were similarly implied by rhythmic effects and occasionally by the use of musical notations.

A Solid Place in Art History

In 1915 Goncharova and Larionov, who had been released from service in the Russian Army for medical reasons, moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, to continue their collaboration with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. This lasted until 1929 when Diaghilev died, after which Goncharova worked for other ballet companies. Her travels of 1916 and 1917 to San Sebastian (Spain), Paris, and Rome formatively brought her into contact with traditional Spanish culture and with a wide range of important contemporary styles. In 1919 Goncharova permanently settled in Paris. The year before the Galerie Sauvage (Paris) had held an exhibit of the theatrical work of Goncharova and Larionov. To Goncharova, painting and theatrical work were closely related, both being forms of esthetic expression. Her theatrical sketches and flats have frequently been exhibited and collected. The vision or interpretation of the ballets on which Goncharova and Larionov worked resulted in a close involvement of the visual with the performing arts. Their costumes and settings often determined the tone of the performance.

By the 1950s growing interest in the flowering of radical Russian art prior to the revolution established Goncharova as one of the pioneers of modern art. Her paintings were acquired by important museums, such as the Tate Gallery, London, and there were a number of exhibitions, that of the Galerie de l'Institut (Paris, 1956) having included new Rayonist paintings and drawings. Despite almost crippling arthritis, Goncharova continued to be productive during the last decade of her life. Her final works moved away from the interpretive and the decorative and sought to explore the infinite, as if at the end of her career Goncharova was returning to her earlier interest in expression through abstraction.

Further Reading

Mary Chamot's Goncharova-Stage Designs and Paintings (London, 1979) is invaluable for the study of Goncharova's art, particularly in that it reviews her seldom treated theatrical work. John E. Bowlt's Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism, 1902-1934 (1976) is equally important for an understanding of the intellectual bases of her early work and the climate in which it was conceived.

Goncharova, Natalia (b Ladyzhino, 4 June, 1881; d Paris, 17 Oct. 1962). Russian painter and designer. Most closely associated with the Diaghilev company, she designed several key works for them, including Fokine's Le Coq d'or (1914), Nijinska's Renard (with her husband Larionov, 1922), Les Noces (1923), and Une nuit sur le mont chauve (1924) and the 1926 revival of Fokine's Firebird. She also designed Fokine's Ygrouchka (New York, 1921) and Cendrillon (London, 1938), Lifar's Sur le Borsythène (with Larionov, Paris, 1932) and Massine's Bogatyri (New York, 1938), as well as the 1954 Sadler's Wells Ballet production of Firebird. Her designs, which often drew inspiration from Russian folk art and Orthodox religious symbolism, were noted for their strong use of colour.

(1881 - 1962), artist, book illustrator, set and costume designer.

Natalia Sergeyevna Goncharova was born on June 21, 1881, in the village of Nagaevo in the Tula province; she died on October 17, 1962, in Paris. She lived in Moscow from 1892 and enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1901 to study sculpture. She met Mikhail Larionov in 1900 - 1901 who encouraged her to paint and became her lifelong companion. They were married in 1957. In 1906 she contributed to the Russian Section at the Salon d'Automne, Paris. In 1908 - 1910 she contributed to the three exhibitions organized by Nikolai Riabushinsky, editor of the journal Zolotoe runo (The Golden Fleece) in Moscow. In 1910 she founded with Larionov and others the Jack of Diamonds group and participated in their first exhibition. In 1911 the group split and from 1911 - 1914 she participated in a series of rival exhibitions organized by Larionov: the "Donkey's Tail" (1912), the "Target "(1913), and the "No. 4" (1914). Throughout this period she worked in several styles - Primitivist, Cubist, and, in 1912 - 1913, Futurist and Rayist. Her work immediately became a lightning rod for debate over the legitimacy and cultural identity of new Russian painting. In 1910 a oneday exhibition of Goncharova's work was held at the Society for Free Esthetics. The nude life studies she displayed on this occasion led to her trial for pornography in Moscow's civil court (she was acquitted). Major retrospective exhibitions of Goncharova's work were organized in Moscow (1913) and St. Petersburg (1914). Paintings of religious subject matter were censored, and in the last exhibition temporarily banned as blasphemous by the Spiritual-Censorship Committee of the Holy Synod.

On April 29, 1914 Goncharova left with Larionov for Paris to mount Sergei Diagilev's production of Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or (a collaboration between herself and choreographer Mikhail Fokine). Also in 1914, the Galerie Paul Guillaume in Paris held her first commercial exhibition. During the 1920s and 1930s she and Larionov collaborated on numerous designs for Diagilev and other impresarios. Returning briefly to Moscow in 1915, she designed Alexander Tairov's production of Carlo Goldoni's Il Ventaglio at the Chamber Theater, Moscow. After traveling with Diagilev's company to Spain and Italy, she settled in Paris with Larionov in 1917. In 1920 - 1921 she contributed to the "Exposition internationale d'art moderne" in Geneva and in 1922 exhibited at the Kingore Gallery, New York. From the 1920s onward she continued to paint, teach, illustrate books, and design theater and ballet productions. After 1930, except for occasional contributions to exhibitions, Larionov and Goncharova lived unrecognized and impoverished. Through the efforts of Mary Chamot, author of Goncharova's first major biography, a number of their works entered museum collections, including the Tate Gallery, London, the National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and the National Art Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand. In 1954 their names were resurrected at Richard Buckle's "The Diagilev Exhibition" in Edinburgh and London. In 1961 Art Council of Great Britain organized a major retrospective of Goncharova's and Larionov's works, and numerous smaller exhibitions were held throughout Europe during the 1970s. In 1995 the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris organized a large exhibition of their work in Europe. Exhibitions were also held at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (1999, 2000). The first retrospective of her Russian oeuvre since 1914 was held at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg in 2002.

Bibliography

Artcyclopedia Web site. (2003) <www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/goncharova_natalia.html>.

Chamot, Mary. (1972). Gontcharova Paris: La Bibliotheque des Arts.

Lukanova, Alla and Avtonomova, Natalia, eds. (2000). Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova. Exhibition Catalogue. Moscow: State Tretiakov Gallery.

Petrova, Evgeniia, ed. (2002). Natalia Goncharova: the Russian Years. Exhibition Catalogue. St. Petersburg: The State Russian Museum and Palace Editions.

—JANE A. SHARP

Natalia Goncharova
Self Portrait with Yellow Lilies. 1907
Nationality	Russian
Field	Painting, Costume design, writer, illustrator, set designer

For other persons named Natalya Goncharova, see Natalya Goncharova (disambiguation).

Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (Russian: Наталья Сергеевна Гончарова; June 4, 1881 - October 17, 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist (Cubo-Futurism), painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Her great-aunt was Natalia Pushkina, wife of the poet Alexander Pushkin.

Contents 1 Life and work 2 Legacy 3 Notes and references 4 External links

Life and work

Natalia Goncharova was born in Nagaevo village near Tula, Russia in 1881. She studied sculpture at the Moscow Academy of Art, but turned to painting in 1904. She was deeply inspired by the primitive aspects of Russian folk art and attempted to emulate it in her own work while incorporating elements of fauvism and cubism. Together with her husband Mikhail Larionov she first developed Rayonism. They were the main progenitors of the pre-Revolution Russian avant-garde organising the Donkey's Tail exhibition of 1912 and showing with the Der Blaue Reiter in Munich the same year.

Cyclist 1913

The Donkey's Tail was conceived as an intentional break from European art influence and the establishment of an independent Russian school of modern art. However, the influence of Russian Futurism is much in evidence in Goncharova's later paintings. Initially preoccupied with icon painting and the primitivism of ethnic Russian folk-art, Goncharova became famous in Russia for her Futurist work such as The Cyclist and her later Rayonnist works. As leaders of the Moscow Futurists, they organised provocative lecture evenings in the same vein as their Italian counterparts. Goncharova was also involved with graphic design - writing and illustrating a book in Futurist style.

Goncharova was a member of the Der Blaue Reiter avant-garde group from its founding in 1911. In 1915, she began to design ballet costumes and sets in Geneva. Her designs for the ballet Liturgy: Six Winged Seraph,Angel, St. Andrew, St. Mark, Nativity etc. were started in 1915. The Liturgy was commissioned by Diaghilev with Goncharova, Léonide Massine and Igor Stravinsky. She moved to Paris in 1921 where she designed a number of stage sets of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She became a French citizen in 1939.

In 1962 she died in Paris.

Legacy

On June 18, 2007 Goncharova's 1909 painting Picking Apples was auctioned at Christie's for $9.8 million, setting a record for any female artist.^[1] The record was updated a year later, when Goncharova's 1912 still-life The Flowers (formerly part of Guillaume Apollinaire's collection) sold for $10.8 million.^[2]

Notes and references

1. ^ "Who Was Natalia Goncharova?". The New York Sun. 2007-06-26. http://www.nysun.com/article/57312. Retrieved 2007-03-07. 
2. ^ "A Monet Sets a Record: $80.4 Million". The New York Times. 2008-06-25. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/arts/design/25auct.html?em&ex=1214625600&en=49db27f2e86469c1&ei=5087%0A. Retrieved 2008-06-26. 

External links

• Information on Goncharova

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