Natalia Goncharova (1881 – 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer.She moved to Moscow at the age of 10 in 1892 and graduated from the Fourth Women’s Gymnasium in 1898. In 1901 Goncharova began her own studies at the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a sculptor, under Pavel Trubetskoi, who was associated with the World of Art movement. By 1903, she began exhibiting in major Russian salons. She was awarded a silver medal for sculpture in 1903-04. 

In 1901 Natalia Goncharova began her own studies at the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a sculptor, under Pavel Trubetskoi, who was associated with the World of Art movement. By 1903, Natalia Goncharova began exhibiting in major Russian salons. She was awarded a silver medal for sculpture in 1903-04. It was at the Moscow Institute that Natalia Goncharova met fellow-student Mikhail Larionov, and not long afterwards they began sharing a studio and living space. She withdrew from the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1909, and in 1910, after a number of students were expelled from Konstantin Korovin’s portrait class for imitating the contemporary style of European Modernism, Goncharova, Larionov, Robert Falk, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Alexander Kuprin, Ilya Mashkov and others formed Moscow’s first radical independent exhibiting group, the Jack of Diamonds.

The Jack of Diamonds’ first exhibition (December 1910-11) included Primitivist and Cubist paintings by Natalia Goncharova, and in the later Donkey’s Tail exhibition (March–April 1912) organized by Larionov, more than fifty of her paintings were on display. Natalia Goncharova was a member of the Der Blaue Reiter avant-garde group from its founding in 1911.

In 1915, Natalia Goncharova began to design ballet costumes and sets in Geneva. In 1915 she started work on a series of designs—Six Winged Seraph, Angel’, St. Andrew, St. Mark, Nativity, and others—for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev to be titled Liturgy. Also involved in the project, for which Igor Stravinsky was invited to compose the score, were Larionov and Léonide Massine, but the ballet never materialized. Natalia Goncharova moved to Paris in 1921 where she designed a number of stage sets of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Goncharova also exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1921, and participated regularly at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Indépendants. Source: Wikart.