Natalia Goncharova

Goncharova and other artists at a Donkey's Tail exhibition, 1912

The students rejected from Korovin's classes, and others, soon formed Moscow's first radical independent exhibiting group, the Jack of Diamonds, which was named by Larionov.[6] This is rather a provocative name, as it alludes to both boulevard literature and the prison uniforms.[9]

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.[6] Goncharova drew inspirations for primitivism from Russian icons and folk art, otherwise known as luboks.[10] 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,[4] partly because it blended sacred and profane imagery, and also because there were taboos for women to paint icons.[11]

Goncharova and her partner, 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.[12] In Russia, she was to 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.[14]

Rayonist Lilies, 1913

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.

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.[9]

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".[10]

She exhibited at the Salon d'Automne (Exposition de L'art Russe) in 1906.[15]

Goncharova was a member of the avant-garde Der Blaue Reiter group from its founding in 1911. In 1915, she began to design ballet costumes and sets in Geneva. In 1915 she started work on a series of designs – Six Winged Seraph, Angel, St Andrew, St Mark, Nativity, and others – for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, to be titled Liturgy. Also involved in the project, for which Igor Stravinsky was invited to compose the score, were Larionov and Léonide Massine, but the ballet never materialized.[16] Goncharova moved to Paris in 1921 where she designed a number of stage sets of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She also exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1921, and participated regularly at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Indépendants.

Goncharova also identified with Everythingism (russ. Vsechestvo), the Russian avant-garde movement. Everythingism 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.[9]

Together with Larionov, she left Russia and went to Paris on 29 April 1914. In that 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 (23 February 1923), the Bal Banal (14 March 1924), the Bal Olympique or the Vrai Bal Sportif (11 July 1924), and the Grand Ourse Bal (8 May 1925). They both designed much of the publicity materials for the event.[17]

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.[18][19]

In 1938 Goncharova became a French citizen.[20] On 2 June 1955, four years after Larionov suffered a stroke, the two artists got married in Paris to safeguard their rights of inheritance.[20] Influenced by the School of Paris, her style moved from Cubism nearer to Neoclassicism.[9] Goncharova was the first of the pair to die, seven years later, on 17 October 1962, in Paris after a debilitating struggle with rheumatoid arthritis.[21]

Portrait of Natalia Goncharova by Mikhail Larionov (1915)

On 18 June 2007, Goncharova's 1909 painting Picking Apples was auctioned at Christie's for $9.8 million, setting a record for any female artist at the time.[33] She is considered one of the most expensive women artists at auction,[34] and her work features in Russian art auctions during the bi-annual Russian Art Week in London.

In November 2007, Bluebells (1909) brought £3.1 million ($6.2 million).[35] In 2008, Goncharova's 1912 still-life The Flowers (formerly part of Guillaume Apollinaire's collection) sold for $10.8 million.[36][37]

In 2019, a scholar researching the life of the Czech Futurist painter Růžena Zátková found two previously unknown gouaches by Goncharova in a private collection; both the works were dedicated to Zatkova, and were from 1916.[38] The two artists had been friends since 1915, since Sergei Diaghilev had invited them, Mikhail Larionov, and Diaghilev's troupe, the Ballets Russes, to stay with him in his rented Swiss villa, and the works were made whilst Zatkova was ill with tuberculosis.[38]

On 3 July 2017, Google celebrated her 136th birthday with a Google Doodle.[39]