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Biografy

Natalia Sergeevna Gontcharova
(Nagaevo, 1881 - París, 1962)

She was born in Negaevo (Tula, Central Russia) on June 4th, 1881. A descendent of Alexander Pushkin, she comes from a cultured family and is brought up in her grandmother's countryside home, where she lives until 1892, when she goes to Moscow to pursue her secondary studies. In 1898 she attends the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpting and Architecture, where she learns to sculpt with Prince Trubetskoi, a disciple of Rodin. Besides sculpture modeling, she studies drawing and watercolor and, in 1900 she meets Mijail Larionov, who will become her lifetime companion. Although she begins to expose as a sculptor, she soon opts for painting, initiating her career under the influence of French and Russian impressionism and postimpressionism.

In 1906 she participates in the Russian section of the Salon d'Autumn which was organized by Serge Diaghilev, although she still had not traveled to Paris. Starting in that year, she along with Larionov begin their primitivist period during which we can detect the influence of Gauguin, and more so of popular Russian art and icon painting. She paints countryside scenes, flowers, religious themes, and begins to design theater sets as well as do illustrations. In 1910 she exposes both nudes and religious works in the Free Aesthetic Society of Moscow, causing quite a scandal which resulted in the confiscation of the works. For the first--though not the only--time, she is accused of indecent behavior and blasphemy.

This is the beginning of a period of great activity for her, participating in such auspicious expositions as the Unión de la Juventud and other groups that were founded by independent artists. She herself was one of the protagonists of a group called Jota de Diamantes , the first of whose expositions she contributed to in 1910-11. After cutting ties with this group, she and Larionov later founded The Donkey's Tail and in 1912 she participated in their exposition with many of her paintings. It is during the cubo-futurist period when Gontcharova and Larionov become important references, not only for Russian artistic activity, but also for the contact that they had with the western avant-garde, and the close relationship between Russian poets and artists, which materialized through various collaborations. In the same year, she also takes part in the second exposition of Blaue Reiter in Munich.

In 1913 she signs, along with ten other artists, the Rayonist Manifesto and in the same year an anthological exposition takes place in Moscow with more than seven hundred works. She and Larionov begin a period of body painting, and both become involved in the realization of several futurist films, one by V. Kasyanov and the following year Drama in the Futurist Cabaret nº 13 in which they both appear as actors. Diaghilev commissions her to do the set and costume designs for the Rimsky-Korsakov Ballet, The Golden Cockerel , presented in 1914 in Paris, giving her occasion to travel to the French capital for the first time, passing first through Rome. In Paris they meet Apollinaire and he writes the introduction for the exposition honoring the two Russian painters in the Paul Gauillaume Gallery. In August, faced with the threat of war that swept through Europe, they return to Russia and Larionov is first mobilized and, shortly thereafter, wounded.

Starting in 1915 Gontcharova's work in theater and ballet becomes increasingly more frequent. She accompanies Diaghilev to Spain in 1916, where she designs costumes and sets for the ballets España and Triana , neither of which was brought to the stage, but also for Rimsky-Korsakov's Sakdo , which was performed in San Sebastian. Quite interested in Spanish themes and characters, she begins painting with these motifs, which, in the later years of her career, will reappear. In 1917, while in Rome with the Russian Ballets, she coincides with Picasso and the Italian futurists.

Larionov and Gontcharova settle definitively in Paris and being there, they are taken by surprise by The October Revolution. A part of their small studio in Moscow is requisitioned, although the sketches and paintings are later returned, many of which are subsequently donated to soviet museums. During the 20's there are a number of combined expositions dealing with their theatrical projects; they present their new pictorial realizations and she especially continues to illustrate diverse texts, such as the French translation of Pushkin's The Prince and the Swan Princess , among others. Several expositions take place in such cities as Paris, Amsterdam, Venice, Geneva, etc. and she continues with her theatrical projects, including designing the puppets for Fête au village in 1924, and the sets and costumes for Night on the Bear Mountain by Mussorsky and choreographed by Nijinsky, and for a new production of Stravinsky's Firebird for the Russian Ballets in London in 1926.

In 1929 Diaghilev passes away and the following year Gontcharova participates in an important retrospective of the Russian Ballets. Her theatrical works are not interrupted by the disappearance of Diaghilev. In fact, the number of her commissioned works for various theater and dance companies begins to multiply until 1926. Natalia Gontcharova finally passed away on October 17th, 1962.