Natalia Goncharova

Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova Russian: Ната́лья Серге́евна Гончаро́ва. Pronunciation: nɐˈtalʲjə sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvnə ɡənt͡ɕɐˈrovə (16 June 1881  17 October 1962)Or born Ladyzhino, 4 June 1881. Crane, Debra and Mackrell, Judith 2000. The Oxford dictionary of dance. p208 was a Russian painter, designer and writer. She was an avant-garde artist: her art styles were influenced by fauvism, cubism and futurism. As a designer she was notable for her set and costume creations for ballet and theatre.Crane, Debra and Mackrell, Judith 2000. The Oxford dictionary of dance. p208

Goncharova holds the world record for the price paid for a work of art by a woman.Moriarity, Bridget 2009. Artist Dossier: Natalie Goncharova The painting was Goncharova's 1912 still-life The Flowers, and it sold for $U.S. 10.8 million.

Life and work
Natalia Goncharova studied sculpture in Moscow, but worked as a painter and designer. She was inspired both by an interest in Russian folk art, and by modernism in art. With her lifelong partner Mikhail Larionov she first developed a style called Rayonism. They part of the pre-Revolution Russian avant-garde. They helped to organise the so-called 'Donkey's Tail' exhibition of 1912, and showed their work at the Der Blaue Reiter exhibition in Munich the same year.

Goncharova became famous in Russia for her Futurist work such as The Cyclist and her later Rayonist works. They organised lecture evenings and Goncharova wrote and illustrating a book in Futurist style.

In 1913, she began to design ballet costumes and sets for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and elsewhere. She did the stage and costume design for these ballets: Le Coq d'Or''' (1914), The Liturgy (1915), Ygrushka (1921) Reynard (with her husband; 1922), Les Noces (1923), Une nuit sur le mont chauve (1924), The Firebird (1926 revival), Sur le Borsythène (with her husband; 1932), Cendrillon (1938), Bogatyri (1938) and the 1954 Sadler's Wells production of Firebird''.

Goncharova moved to Paris in 1921, where she regularly exhibited her art. She became a French citizen in 1939. She married Larionov at last in 1955, and died in Paris, in 1962.

The largest collections of her work are in the Pompidou  Centre in Paris; the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg; and the State Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow.

Related pages
 Magic realism
 Galia Shabanova
 List of Italian painters

 Notes 

Category:1881 births
Category:1962 deaths
Category:Russian painters
Category:Costume designers
Category:Immigrants to France