Natalia Goncharova

Natalia (Nataliya, Natalya) Goncharova was a Russian painter, sculptor, and designer. After studying at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, with a focus on sculpture, Goncharova began painting in a Cubist and Futurist manner. Around 1910, with her husband Mikhail Larionov, she founded Rayonism, a painting style that depicted the qualities of reflected light on a two-dimensional surface. From 1910 to 1914, she had three solo exhibitions in Moscow and Leningrad. As a designer, Goncharova created scenery and costumes for the Kamerny Theater in Moscow and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris. In 1921, she began to design clothing and textiles for the mass market.