Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (July 3, 1881 – October 17, 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Goncharova's lifelong partner was fellow Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov. She was a founding member of both the Jack of Diamonds (1909–1911), Moscow's first radical independent exhibiting group, the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912–1913), and with Larionov invented Rayonism (1912–1914). She was also a member of the German-based art movement Der Blaue Reiter. Born in Russia, she moved to Paris in 1921 and lived there until her death.
Her painting vastly influenced the avant-garde in Russia. Her exhibitions held in Moscow and St. Petersburg (1913 and 1914) were the first promoting a “new” artist by an independent gallery. When it came to the pre-revolutionary period in Russia, where decorative painting and icons were a secure profession, her modern approach to rendering icons was both transgressive and problematic. She was one of the leading figures in the avant-garde in Russia and carried this influence with her to Paris.
Her immediate family were highly educated and considered themselves politically liberal. Her father designed and built their home, where both Natalia and her brother Afanasii grew up. They were both raised and educated by their mother and grandmother. They lived in the Orlov and Tyla provinces, and soon Goncharova moved to Moscow to pursue the Fourth Women's Gymnasium in 1892, from which she graduated in 1898. She tried several career paths (zoology, history, botany, and medicine), before deciding on sculpture.
At the end of the century the gender segregation in the official art institutions was no longer implemented, but still denied women the right to get the diploma upon the completion. She withdrew from the Moscow Institute in 1909, in favor of classes at Illia Mashkov and Alexander Mikhailovsky's studios, where she was able to study male and female nudes, and was trained the equivalent of what she would have learnt upon completion at the Moscow Institute had she been male. In 1910, a number of students were expelled from Konstantin Korovin's portrait class for imitating the contemporary style of European Modernism, with Goncharova, Larionov, Robert Falk, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Alexander Kuprin, Ilya Mashkov amongst
The Jack of Diamonds' first exhibition (December 1910–11) included Primitivist and Cubist paintings by Goncharova, but the group split in half in 1912 to form the more provocative group, the Donkey's Tail. At the latter group's first exhibition (March–April 1912) organized by Larionov, more than fifty of her paintings were on display. Goncharova drew inspirations for primitivism from Russian icons and folk art, otherwise known as luboks. 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. The exhibition proved controversial, and the censor confiscated Goncharova's religiously-themed work, The Evangelists (1910–11), deeming it blasphemous partly because it was hung at an exhibition titled after the rear end of a donkey, partly because it blended sacred and profane imagery, and also because there were taboos for women to paint icons.
Russian Futurism and Rayonism
Goncharova and her counterpart, Larionov, were continuously harassed for their artwork and the way they expressed themselves.[10] 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 soon began to mix Cubist and Futurist elements in her work, which led to the beginnings of Cubo-Futurism. In Russia, she would become famous for her work in this style, such as Cyclist. In 1911, she and Larionov developed Rayonism, and produced many paintings in that style. As leaders of the Russian Futurists,[13] they organized provocative lecture evenings in the same vein as their Italian counterparts. Goncharova was also involved with graphic design—writing, and illustrated several avant-garde books.
Another important exhibition Goncharova participated in is called The Target (March–April 1913) and No. 4 (March–April 1914). She played a very important role when it came to Russian art at the time. Her aesthetic choices that were bridging the Eastern and Western traditions, served as a catalyst for manifestos and art movements at the time. She was one of the leading artists in Cubo-Futurist (Airplane over a Train, 1912) and Rayonist (Yellow and Green Forest, 1913) circles.[citation needed] Even though her pre-World War I art still had problematic associations, her participation in these exhibits were a segue for Moscow's avant-garde blending of both Western European Modernism and Eastern traditions. In one of her interviews, she said that she got inspiration from Picasso, Le Fauconnier, and Braque, but still her first “Cubist” works to date as long as one year before that.
She was also notorious for her occasionally shocking public behaviour. When Goncharova and Larionov first became interested in Primitivism, they painted hieroglyphics and flowers on their faces and walked through the streets; Goncharova herself sometimes appeared topless in public with symbols on her chest as part of her manifesto "Why We Paint Our Faces."
She exhibited at the Salon d'Automne (Exposition de L'art Russe) in 1906.
Goncharova also identified with Everythingvism (russ. Vsechestvo), the Russian avant-garde movement. Everythingvism was considered as an extension of Neo-Primitivism. This art promotes heterogeneity, a blending of multiple cultural traditions, such as West and East and different styles such as Cubism and Futurism. It aspired to erase the boundaries between what is considered the origin and the copy, and assimilated those together. It was an art movement that was free of already set artistic laws. Together with Larionov, she left Russia and went to Paris on April 29, 1914. In this year she designed costumes and sets for the Ballets Russes's premiere of The Golden Cockerel in the city. Goncharova and Larionov collaborated on four events in Paris for the benefit of the Union des Artistes Russes. These events were the Grand Bal des Artistes or the Grand Bal Travesti Transmental (February 23, 1923), the Bal Banal (March 14, 1924), the Bal Olympique or the Vrai Bal Sportif (July 11, 1924), and the Grand Ourse Bal (May 8, 1925). They both designed much of the publicity materials for the event.
Between 1922 and 1926, Goncharova created fashion designs for Marie Cuttoli's shop, Maison Myrbor on the Rue Vincent, Paris. Her richly embroidered and appliquéd dress designs were strongly influenced by Russian folk art, Byzantine mosaic and her work for the Ballets Russes.
In 1938 Goncharova became a French citizen. On June 2, 1955, four years after Larionov suffered a stroke, the two artists got married in Paris to safeguard their rights of inheritance. Influenced by the School of Paris, her style moved from Cubism nearer to Neoclassicism. Goncharova was the first of the pair to die, seven years later, on October 17, 1962, in Paris after a debilitating struggle with rheumatoid arthritis.
Her early pastels and painting are influenced by the family main estate in Kaluga province, called Polotnianyi Zavod. The description of the life there suggests that the leisure part and the work part blurred together, and as such may be associated with the liberal reforms in Russia of the time. The inspiration Goncharova draws from the lifestyle is mostly taken from observing the everyday activities of the servants and peasants who lived there. That is evident in the number of her gardening images that can be identified with the landscape of this property.
She also worked for a famous designer Nadejda Lamonava in Moscow, where her completely artistic expression came to life. She experimented with abstract design, colors, patterns, different combinations of material, and evidently reacting against the prevailing fashion for Orientalism. Her designs were both influenced by Russian tradition and the Byzantine mosaics, which are visible in both the costumes and the dresses. Her work also exhibits Primitivist tendencies.
She also designed many costumes for the Ballets Russes, most notably for the company's production of The Golden Cockerell[citation needed] (Le Coq d'Or) and Firebird. She was a key member of the Ballets Russes and worked closely with Sergei Diaghilev and Bronislava Nijinska. Her work had a major influence on French fashion at the time, particularly with legendary designer Paul Poiret.