RUSSIAN MODERNISM BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

Russian Modernism between East and West reconstructs the efforts of avant-garde artists, primarily Natal’ia Goncharova and her Muscovite colleagues, to reclaim Russia’s Eastern cultural heritage. In the years preceding World War I, avant-garde manifestos, paintings, exhibitions, and debates addressed a crisis in self-representation stemming from Russia’s dual cultural heritages, Asian and European. Jane Sharp demonstrates Goncharova’s leading role in this project as both a spokesperson and an artist. Providing a detailed history of avant-garde exhibitions in early twentieth-century Moscow, this study examines how the avant-garde grappled with the problem of national traditions in Russian art. It also serves as an interpretative overview of Goncharova’s Russian period, and particularly the sources for her work in popular arts.

Jane Ashton Sharp is Associate Professor of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where she is also responsible for research on the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union in the Zimmerli Art Museum. She has curated several exhibitions on Russian and Soviet art, cocurated The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915–1932, and has received fellowships from the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, IREX, the Fulbright – Hays Commission, and the Institute for Advanced Study.

Russian Modernism between East and West

Natal’ia Goncharova and the Moscow Avant-Garde

Jane Ashton Sharp
Rutgers University

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521831628

© Jane Sharp 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in Hong Kong by Golden Cup

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Sharp, Jane Ashton, 1956–
Russian modernism between East and West : Natal'ia Goncharova and
the Moscow avant-garde / Jane Ashton Sharp.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-83162-8 (hardback)
1. Avant-garde (Aesthetics) – Russia (Federation) – Moscow – History –
20th century. 2. Modernism (Art) – Russia (Federation) – Moscow.
3. Art, Russian – Foreign influences. 4. Goncharova, Natal'ia Sergeevna,
1881–1962 – Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
N6988.5.A88S47    2005
709′.47′09041 – dc22    2004020378

ISBN-13 978-0-521-83162-8 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-83162-8 hardback

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the
Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association.

Permission for use of works by Natal'ia Goncharova and
Mikhail Larionov granted by 2005 Artists Rights Society (ARS)
New York / ADAGP, Paris.
Martiros Sar’ ian (figure 6) Art Estate of Martiros Sarjan / RAO,
Moscow / VAGA, New York
Petr Konchalovskii (figure 23) Art Estate of Petr Konchalovskij / RAO,
Moscow / VAGA, New York
Pavel Kuznetsov (figure 27) Art Estate of Pavel Kuznetsov / RAO,
Moscow / VAGA, New York

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To Sam

Contents

List of Illustrations

Plates (follow page xvi):

Center spreads (on pages 192 and 193)

I. Natal’ia Goncharova, Harvest: Composition in Nine Parts (Zhatva: Kompozitsiia iz deviati chastei), 1911. Oil on canvas.

II. Natal’ia Goncharova, Grape Gathering: Composition in Nine Parts(Sbor vinograda: Kompozitsiia iz deviati chastei), 1911.

Figures

Photo credits:

Plates VII, VIII, XI; figs. 63, 68, 124 Philippe Migeat
Fig. 41: Joseph Szaszfai
Fig. 112: Jack Abraham

Acknowledgments

This book began as a dissertation at Yale University, under the generous guidance of Anne Coffin Hanson (advisor) and readers Robert L. Herbert, Linda Nochlin, and Troels Andersen. I am extremely grateful to them and to Laura Engelstein and George L. Hersey for their very helpful suggestions as I revised the text for publication. While awaiting visa approval by the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, I received support from the IREX and Fulbright–Hays foundations, which allowed me to prepare for my period of study at Moscow State University in 1987.

   Owing to the changing political circumstances in which I worked, after 1992, I was fortunate to receive a Social Science Research Council grant to readdress omissions in my earlier archival research – a consequence of denied access to specific materials that limited my research through the Gorbachev era. I am likewise indebted to the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, which funded summer research in Washington, DC. A Mellon Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton enabled me to rework the book manuscript based on my new research. Individuals within each institution have been extremely supportive, including Oleg Grabar, Irving Lavin, and Jack Matlock. I was given access to the archives at the Russian Museum and Tret’iakov Gallery only after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and I am grateful to those institutions and to the staff at the Russian State Archives for Literature and the Arts (RGALI), Moscow, for their generous assistance. At the Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow, I thank Lidiia Iovleva (Deputy Director), Nataliia Priimak, Ol’ga Zabitskaia, Marina Astaf’ieva (Archives), Nataliia Avtonomova and Alla Lukanova (Paintings Department), and Evgeniia Iliukhina (Drawings Department). At the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Evgeniia Petrova (Deputy Director), Nataliia Kozyreva (Curator of Graphics), and Irina Lapina (Head of Manuscript Division) facilitated my research. Gert Imanse at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, generously gave me access to the recently acquired Khardzhiev-Chaga Collection on loan at the museum. A number of scholars in Russia have been extremely generous and inspiring mentors even during times of great hardship and risk, particularly Dmitrii Sarab’ianov, Gleb Pospelov, and Mikhail Allenov.

   The book has benefited as well from discussions with Vladimir Sarab’ianov, Mariia Reformatskaia, and the late Evgenii Kovtun. Elena Ovsiannikova generously showed me her grandfather’s collection of broadsheets and early drawings by Larionov and Goncharova, which significantly enriched the content of several chapters in the later stages of writing. I am grateful as well to Susan Compton for sharing photographs of paintings by Goncharova that I was able to view only in 2000. Finally, without the friendship and generosity of Elena Basner (former Senior Curator at the Russian Museum), Jessica Boissel (former Collections Curator at the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), and the late Mary Chamot, this project would have been impossible to realize. To them I owe my greatest debt of gratitude, both personal and professional. The same goes for my family, and to George, Jane, and James Hersey, for their caring and constant intellectual support.

Ⅰ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Spring – Old Peasant Man and Woman (Vesna – Staryi krest’ianin i krest’ianka) (also known as Scene in an Orchard), 1907. Oil on canvas (100 × 120 cm), Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa

Ⅱ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Still Life on a Tiger Skin (Natiurmort na tigrovoi shkure), 1908. Oil on canvas (140 × 136.5 cm), Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Ⅲ   Tibetan Tiger Rug, early twentieth century. Wool (145 × 94 cm), photograph courtesy Mimi Lipton ed., The Tiger Rugs of Tibet (London: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1988), plate 15

Ⅳ   Natal'ia Goncharova, Religious Composition: Coronation of the Virgin (Religioznaia Kompozitsiia: Venchanie Bogomateri), 1910. Oil on canvas, in three parts (middle: 189 × 143 cm; top: 44.5 × 145 cm; bottom: 33.5 × 145.5 cm), State Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow, A. K. Larinova-Tomilina Bequest

Ⅴ   Diego Velázquez, Coronation of the Virgin, 1640–1642. Oil on canvas (179 × 135 cm), Museo nacional del Prado, Madrid. Photograph © Museo nacional del Prado

Ⅵ   Coronation of the Virgin, 1830–1840. Lithographic print from the Akhmet’ev studio (sheet: 42.8 × 35.4; image: (31.5 × 21.3 cm)), Gabriele Münter und Johannes Eichner Stiftung, Munich

Ⅶ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Harvest (Zhatva): Peacock (Pavlin), 1911. Oil on canvas (100 × 92.5 cm), Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Photograph © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY

Ⅷ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Harvest (Zhatva): Feet Pressing Grapes (Nogi zhmushchie vino), 1911. Oil on canvas (99.5 × 92.5 cm), Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Photograph © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY

Ⅸ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Harvest (Zhatva): Harvest (Zhatva), 1911. Oil on canvas (100 × 93 cm), M. A. Vrubel regional Art Museum, Omsk

Ⅹ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Grape Gathering (Sbor vinograda): Bull (Byk) (also exhibited as Vache bleue/Blaue Kuh), 1911. Oil on canvas (91.5 × 99.3 cm), Private collection, courtesy Galerie Gmurzynska

Ⅺ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Grape Gathering (Sbor vinograda): Women Carrying Baskets of Grapes (Nesushchie vinograd [zhenshchiny]), 1911. Oil on canvas (129 × 101 cm), Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Photograph © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY

Ⅻ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Grape Gathering (Sbor vinograda): Peasants Dancing (Tantsuiushchie), 1911. Oil on canvas (92 × 145 cm), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

ⅩⅢ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Fishing (Lovlia ryby) (also known as Pond [Prud’]), 1909–1910. Oil on canvas (116.8 × 101.6 cm), Des Moines Art Center’s Louise Noun Collection of Art by Women through Bequest, Des Moines

ⅩⅣ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Fishermen (Rybolovy), 1909. Oil on canvas (112 × 99.7 cm), © Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on loan at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

ⅩⅤ   Natal’ia Goncharova, Evangelists (Evangelisty), 1911. Oil on canvas (204 × 58 cm each), State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

ⅩⅥ   Natal'ia Goncharova, Untitled (exhibited as Tête de femme abstraite), 1913–1914. Oil on canvas on paperboard (41 × 32.8 cm), Private collection. Photograph courtesy Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York