Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova’s cubist-futurist painting La Gare (train Station) fetched €963,000 (more than $1 million), surpassing the €500,000 to €800,000 estimate at auction this year.
At the turn of the 20th century, two wildly talented and rebellious students, Goncharova and Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov, met at the prestigious Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. They quickly became partners, sharing both a studio and a living space, and the art world was never the same. As founding members of the Jack of Diamonds, Moscow’s first radical independent exhibiting group, the lovers and collaborators struck a mighty fist through the firmly settled foundation of Russian art. Always stirring controversy while creating revolutionary works, the couple settled in Paris where they spent the rest of their lives.
Natalia Goncharova ‘Laundresses’ (1911) Oil on canvas 40 1/5 × 57 1/2 in | 102 × 146 cm
Estate of Natalia Goncharova
Goncharova, a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer, was also a founder — along with fellow Russian artists Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, and Marianne von Werefkin, and German artists Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter —of another radical art movement known as Der Blaue Reiter. Born July 3, 1881, in Nagaevo, Tula Governorate, part of the Russian Empire, she died Oct. 17, 1962, in Paris.
A pioneering avant-garde Russian painter, Larionov was also a founding member of an even more radical, but short-lived, group called Donkey’s Tail, which included Goncharova, as well as Kazimir Malevich, Marc Chagall, and Aleksandr Shevchenko. They were influenced by the Cubo-Futurism movement, and the group’s lone exhibition was held in Moscow in 1912.
Larionov, who was influenced by the Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani, painted in the style of Impressionism starting in 1902, and after visiting Paris four years later, he shifted to Post-Impressionism and then to a Neo-primitive style, partly derived from Russian sign painting. In 1908 he staged the Golden Fleece exhibition in Moscow, which included paintings by Matisse, Derain, Braque, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.
Together, Goncharova and Larionov developed a groundbreaking style of abstract art known as Rayonism, after hearing a series of lectures about Futurism by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement.
Goncharova’s father, Sergey Mikhaylovich Goncharov, was an architect and also graduated from the same Moscow Institute where she and Larionov fell in love.
In 1915, Larionov left Russia to work with ballet owner Sergei Diaghilev in Paris on the the Ballets Russes, gaining French citizenship and never returning to his homeland. He was born June 3, 1881, in Tiraspol, Kherson Governorate, part of the Russian Empire, and died May 10, 1964, in the Paris suburb Fontenay-aux-Roses.
Fifty-five years after his death, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow hosted the first major Larionov retrospective in Russia, divided into a Russian section featuring mostly paintings, and a French section, including paintings as well as a large collection of his graphic works, many on public display for the first time. The French portion also displays his works from the Ballets Russes, along with works of other artists from his private collection.
Larionov’s delightful “A Stroll in a Provincial Town” (circa 1909) is feverishly inspired by his first visit to Paris in 1906. The vibrant and bold colors depict a flamboyant and carefree lifestyle that is undoubtedly refreshing to a Russian native. The diversity of his work is stark in the Tretyakov Gallery exhibition which features this painting.
Meanwhile, in London, watercolors by Goncharova, including three of her costume designs estimated to fetch between £600 ($771) and £800 ($1,029), are going on the block at Dawson’s Art, Antiques and Jewelry sale on Jan. 19.
Her work is part of Russian art and objects dealer Christopher Martin-Zakheim’s extensive collection from his former shop Iconastas in Piccadilly Arcade. Martin-Zakheim was diagnosed with a brain tumor and consigned the remaining stock of his beloved store when it closed last year. He died on Dec. 25, 2018.
The regal Iconastas opened in 1974, specializing in Russian Art from the beginning of Christianity to the end of Communism. It’s where well-heeled international collectors would find everything from Orthodox Icons and crosses created from the 16th century until the 1900s, to Soviet porcelain figures from the 1920’s, or precious pieces by Faberge.
More than half a century after their deaths, Goncharova and Larionov continue to intrigue and shock the art world, sometimes in curious ways.
“Still Life with Teapot and Oranges” was, for more than 50 years, believed to have been painted by Larionov, but Aleksandra Babenko, an Associate Specialist in Russian Art at Christie’s, discovered that it had been painted by Goncharova. It sold at Christie’s in November 2017 for £2.4 million ($3.1 million).
‘The minute I saw the painting in the flesh, it took my breath away,” said Babenko. ‘The vividness and boldness of its colors, the accentuated ultramarine outlines, and the audaciously angled composition — all exemplified the youthful fervor and rebellious mood within Moscow’s artistic community in the early 20th century.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
