Avant-garde Amazon – Natalia Goncharova

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Goncharova: The Art and Design of Natalia Goncharova

Anthony Parton

The Russian artist Natalia Goncharova (1881–1962) was truly innovative, with a range of styles that allowed her to capture the very content of her world view – egalitarian, aesthetic and spiritual, with a strong attraction to Eastern cultures – in all the different media in which she worked. A contemporary of Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky, her versatility was demonstrated in her mammoth (over 800 works) one-woman show of autumn 1913 (Moscow, spring 1914 in Petersburg). Her images of peasants were in the Neo-Primitive style while her portraits or figures, which were also inspired by ancient Russian sculpture, were in Cubist style. For her biblical cycles she used a bright, flat Fauvism that was equally influenced by the traditional style of Russian icons. In her Rayism (a style she developed with her husband, Mikhail Larionov) she captured light in nature. In using such a wide range of styles, Goncharova was adapting style to her subject matter, rather than beginning with a style and then choosing the subject.

This stylistic versatility also allowed Goncharova to navigate between figurative and non-figurative painting. After her Rayism of 1913–14, she turned to a flat, abstract Purism (a style associated with the architect le Corbusier) in the early 1920s when she was in Paris. This gave a new impetus to her work for the stage and in design during the 1920s and 1930s. As she said, ‘painting is an inner necessity for theatre design and not the other way round’.

In approaching Goncharova’s original and unconventional artistic development, Parton faced difficulties posed by the lack of studio inventories of Goncharova’s work. These gaps affect the late 1910s, after she had left Russia to design for the Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, never imagining that she would not return. Later, her Paris studio was emptied in the 1970s after her death in 1962, resulting in more gaps in the inventory.

So many works are known to have gone unrecorded and into a number of hands both private and state, in Russia and Paris, and they have been appearing on the market in recent years. This means that collectors are relying on scientific analysis to replace lost records. In one case, this benefited the author directly. Scientific investigation into one painting showed that it had signs of smoke damage, and this made it possible for Parton to identify it with the title of a work in the catalogue of the 1912 Moscow exhibition, ‘Donkey’s Tail’.  A fire had broken out in the premises just before the opening, and contemporary press reports mentioned that numerous works had suffered smoke damage.

Thus relying on science, documents from exhibition catalogues (although of the over 800 numbers listed in her 1913 catalogue only one-half of the works can be identified, for example) and press reviews, the memoirs of those who knew Goncharova such as Alexandra Tomilina-Larionov, Tatiana Loguine and Mary Chamot, the Goncharova archives in London, and above all on the works themselves, Anthony Parton has compiled a history and a story about one of Russia’s most creative and inventive 20th-century artists.

This is the first comprehensive historical investigation into Goncharova’s painting, graphics, work for the theatre, and design. It has been in the making for 30 years, the author having spent years travelling between libraries and collections, gathering archives and documents on the art of Goncharova in order to compile an exhaustive and authoritative account of the artist’s phenomenal creativity, which began in 1900 and continued to the end of her life in 1962.

Integrating personal biography with the artist’s creative biography, Anthony Parton develops his history on two levels. He looks at groups of works in their historical context – such as the Neo-Primitive works of peasants, the artist’s commissions from Sergei Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes, the artist’s Futurist books, her interior designs for restaurants, homes, a chapel and so forth. He discusses her ideas – her deep commitment to social liberty and justice, the celebration of Russian traditional culture, the formal interplay between language and image in panel paintings devoted to the seasons or the liturgical cycles, for example.

Then Parton develops the history of these creative works stylistically and formally. This two-fold approach to Goncharova’s work makes the book readable and engaging on the one hand, and allows for in-depth discussion of the various trends on the other hand. This is a book of the highest standard and is the essential text for the history of the art of Natalia Goncharova.

The author wrote the following letter to this reviewer.

‘Of course I was working on this book, without knowing it, for 30 years – ever since I met Mary Chamot [author of the first book on Goncharova] and Tatiana Loguine [artist and friend of Goncharova’s] back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time I was researching Larionov [Goncharova’s husband] but you couldn't do one without automatically doing the other. Then of course there was the continual pressure from Mary and Tatiana to write about Goncharova – they were both wonderful – they arranged appointments for me to meet half the Ecole de Paris (the half who were still alive) and so I had access to the most wonderful archival sources. Mme Prokofiev was brilliant with me – it was such a privilege to know her – though that introduction came from Oleg, Prokofiev's son, who had been married to Camilla Gray [the author of the first history of Russian art in English]. I knew Michel Seuphor very well, Pierre Vorms, Anton Dolin, Giuseppe Sprovieri, director of the Galeria Futurista in Rome – I had contact with Mme Spendiarova in Russia, the wife of Sergei Romanovich, both of whom adored Larionov and Goncharova. Mme Spendiarova even kept a pair of Larionov's shoes that he had left in Moscow in 1915! So, I collected information on Goncharova for 30 years and in the process, of course, saw many paintings.

 I knew Mme Larionov but she was very frail and never allowed me to see any archival documents in the apartment, claiming that the most important documentation had all been sent to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Indeed, the National Art Library in the V&A has the most magnificent Goncharova/Larionov archive outside Russia. It possesses almost  the entire contents of Goncharovas and Larionov's  library, including manifestos, writings, letters, photographs and much more besides. There are hundreds of rare items in that collection. And the print rooms of the V&A contain a stunning collection of stage works, artist's sketchbooks, pochoir prints, drawings etc.

‘Well, I am off the point – I knew Mme Larionov, but the paintings at this time were locked away in the Odoul Warehouse. However, I had free access to Mary Chamot's archives including her own catalogue raisonneof works both inside and outside Russia. Mary had spent years travelling in Russia (she was, of course, Russian by birth) visiting both major collections and provincial galleries and studying Goncharova's work wherever she could find it. Mary gave me her catalogue raisonne before she died – I still have it! She also gave me many important documents relating to Goncharova and items from Goncharova's and Larionov's personal archive that they had given to her.

‘The other thing that was very kind, was that Mme. Larionov sent me scores of photographs of works by Goncharova – many of which had at that point gone missing and were only known from archival photographs in her possession. I think I have put all this or a substantial part in the acknowledgements of my book.’

Goncharova: The Art and Design of Natalia Goncharova  by Anthony Parton is published by Antique Collectors Club, 2010. 496 pp. ISBN 978-1851496051