Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from the York Festival of Ideas on the Russian 20th century artist Natalia Goncharova. Elena Kashina from the Centre of Lifelong Learning, University of York took us through the artists career via a series of paintings showing how she forged a ground-breaking style based on tradition and innovation, was the conduit of the Russian avant-garde to the rest of the west and influenced developments in the performing arts in the 20th century. I had really enjoyed the Goncharova exhibition at Tate Modern a few years ago so it was lovely to revisit these pictures and to have the various art groups she started explained in more detailed. I loved the idea of the Donkey’s Tail group painted their faces and advertised where they were going to be to attract crowds and the press. I liked the section on her work for the Ballet Russe and the artistic family she joined there as I have been doing some research on them recently.  

Stunning exhibition at Tate Modern on the life and work of the Russian artist Natalia Goncharova. The show was wonderfully colourful and included paintings, textile designs, book illustrations and theatrical designs. It chartered her work from rural Imperial Russia to her life in Paris after the 1920s. I loved the early work and it was a nice touch to show it with a peasants outfit of the time to show you where the colours and vibrancy came from. She showed an interest in textiles throughout her life and in fact the name of her family estate meant “cloth factory” and a number of the pictures in this section looked at the process of cloth making. The show looked at how Moscow, where Goncharova moved when she was eleven, was one of the best places in the world to see modern part as two industrialists, Ivan Morozov and Sergie Shchukin, had huge collections which they opened to the public and there was a room of pictures Goncharova would have seen there plus works they purc...