Natalia Goncharova
Russia (1881—1962)
Born to a wealthy family, she studied painting and sculpture in Moscow. Here she met Mikhail Larionov, who became her lifelong partner and encouraged her to favour painting over sculpture. She exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1906 in Paris with the support of Sergei Diaghilev. In 1910 she founded Jack of Diamonds and in 1911 and exhibited with Der Blaue Reiter. A year later she and Larionov left to set out the group Donkey’s Tail, with Marc Chagall and Malevic, favouring Russian topics. In the same year she joined Hylaea, a Russian Futurist group which gave her and Larionov the inspiration to found Rayonism the following year. In 1914 they moved to Paris, where she also worked on stage design for the Russian ballet.
