Natalia GONTCHAROVA (1881-1962) FARM COURTYARD... Lot 49

Natalia GONTCHAROVA (1881-1962) FARM COURTYARD About 1907-1908 Oil on canvas Signed in Cyrillic in the lower left-hand corner 69 x 39 cm Born on 4 June 1881 in Ladyzhino (Tula government), into a family of the Russian nobility, Natalia Goncharova (??????? ?????????) was admitted in 1898 to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where she trained with the sculptor Paul Troubetzkoï. She abandoned sculpture in 1904 and devoted herself to painting after meeting Mikhaïl Larionov, who was to be her lifelong companion, and then became a pupil of the impressionist Konstantin Korovine. From 1907 onwards, she developed neo-primitivism with her companion. This style of painting combined Western modernism with traditional Russian folk art forms. Influenced by icons, Russian folk imagery (loubok), chromos, handicraft signs, religious themes and peasant inspiration dominate her work. Thus, as in the painting before us, many of Goncharova's paintings of this period, are inspired by the peasant life and culture of her native Tula province in central Russia. "The modern French painters opened my eyes and I grasped the great importance and value of the art of my native land, and through it, the value of the art of the East." Natalia Goncharova