1881
22 May
Birth of Mikhail Larionov at Tiraspol (Bessarabia).
His father, Fedor (Theodore), is an army doctor. His mother, Alexandra Feodosseevna, is of Ukrainian origin. If the artist’s memory is to be trusted, she had practiced painting in her youth. Throughout his life as a painter, Larionov remains deeply attached to southern Russia, its landscapes, its light and above all the memory of a mother with whom he was still corresponding from Paris in the early 1920s.
1891
1898
Enrolls in Moscow’s School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (the Stroganov School) where he studies in the studios of Constantin Korovin and the widely recognized Valentin Serov, a painter in the Impressionist vein who regards himself as a disciple of Claude Monet and who exerts a considerable influence on the birth of modern Russian painting.
Meets Natalya Goncharova (1881-1962), a student in Pavel Trubetskoi’s sculpture studio at the Stroganov School.
1902-1906
The few art historians to take an interest in his work at this time present this period as a time of maturation for the best Russian Impressionist painter of the era (Kazimir Malewicz remains unknown until 1908. Larionov is one of the first to take an interest in his painting, which results in a great friendship forming between the two men).
Larionov’s Impressionist output meets with some success: his pastels are bought by major Moscow art collectors, such as I. I. Troianovski and even Ivan Morozov (as famous for his collection of French art as was Sergei Shchukin).
1903
Larionov and Goncharova live together and henceforth will never leave each other. They will marry only in 1956 in Paris, a few years before Goncharova’s death. In order to meet their respective parents, they travel together to Tiraspol and to Crimea.
1905-1906
Under Larionov’s influence Goncharova gives up sculpture and devotes herself to painting. Larionov is a troublemaker at the Stroganov School and often runs afoul of the school’s disciplinary committee. (He will leave the school in 1910.) Accused of being lazy, he suddenly contributes 100 paintings to an exhibition of art by students. He refuses to withdraw the majority of his works and is suspended. He then declines to agree not to seek admission to the school again, whereupon the teachers have no option but to buy him a train ticket to Tiraspol and send him there. A few months later he is readmitted to the school.
1906
The famous ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev, who meets Larionov in 1903, invites him to the opening of the big Russian exhibition he organizes at the Paris Salon d’Automne in 1906. This is the first major survey of modern Russian art outside Russia. It is so successful that it later opens in Berlin. This first visit to Paris allows the young Larionov to discover Gauguin’s work, which features in a large-scale posthumous retrospective at the Salon. Fauvism makes its appearance. After spending several weeks in Paris Larionov visits London where Turner’s painting makes a deep impression on him. Turner will be another major pillar of his lyrical sensitivity.
Returns to Moscow in November and will champion French painting until his departure for the West in 1915.
Begins to exhibit regularly as well as to organize exhibitions. A small group of artists forms around Larionov. Until 1914 this circle will be the nucleus of all avant-garde exhibitions in Moscow. Among others, it will include the Burliuk brothers, David, Nicolai and Vladimir, Aleksandra Exter and Natalya Goncharova. Later it will extend to Russian Fauvists and Cézannists Ilya Machkov, Piotr Konchalovsky and Aristarkh Lentulov.
1907
After his visit to Paris, his work shows a strong Gauguin influence, which will lead to his first Fauvist and subsequent Expressionist experiments.
1908
1909
December : Larionov takes part in the first international “Salon” at Odessa (and subsequently at Kiev) organized by the sculptor Vladimir Izdebsky. This is the first show of Russian avant-garde artists and Kandinsky’s Munich group.
It comprises nearly 700 works. Young French painting is represented with canvases by Braque, Vlaminck, Le Fauconnier, Marie Laurencin, Marquet, Rouault, Henri Rousseau, Van Dongen; the Munich painters include Vassily Kandinsky, Alexi von Jawlensky, Gabrielle Münter. The Odessa show features a generous sampling of modern trends, principally the Munich version of French Fauvism and German Expressionism, Georges Braque’s early Cubist works and the Douanier Rousseau’s primitivism. For the next three years this aesthetic offering will supply the stylistic touchstone of Larionov’s work.
1910
Vladimir Izdebsky’s second “Salon” opens in Odessa with significant contributions: fifty-three Compositions, Improvisations and other works by Wassily Kandinsky (amounting to what can be considered the first one-man show of that painter in Russia), as well as twenty-four canvases by Goncharova and twenty-five by Larionov.
Vladimir Tatlin (whom Larionov regards now as one of his students), the brothers David and Vladimir Burliuk, Alexandra Exter, Alexi van Jawlenski, Gabrielle Münter, Marianne von Werefkin, Ilya Machkov and Aristarkh Lentolov are some of the other participants.
“Knave of Diamonds” exhibition
In December the first large-scale exhibition of modern Russian painting organized by Larionov — the “Knave of Diamonds” show — opens concurrently in Moscow, featuring canvases by Kandinsky, Natalya Goncharova, Alexandra Exter, David Burliuk, and also for the first time in the framework of an art exhibition, works by the soon-to-be Futurists Malewicz and Aleksei Morgunov. The group of Russian Cézannists, subsequently regarded as the show’s “traditonalist” kernal, includes Ilya Machkov, Aristakh Lentulov, Alexander Kuprin and Piotr Konchalovsky.
Towards the beginning of summer David Burliuk invites Larionov along with poet Velimir Khlebnikov to Tchernianka (Ukraine) where, thanks to a series of friendships, he participates in the first creative group of Russian Futurism. Amicable artistic relations are formed between students at the Stroganov school. Mayakovsky and the “transrational” poet Aleksei Kruchenykh are students there, respectively in the drawing and painting classes, and the future theorist of Russian Formalism, the writer Viktor Schklovsly, attends the sculpture studio. On 25 September Larionov graduates from the school with the title of “Painter, Second Class.” He completes his military service in three periods: first ten months (winter 1910-sulmmer 1911), then spring 1912 and finally spring 1913. (These dates are certain and allow art historians to determine precisely when the artist painted certain series of canvases, despite the fact that he later stated that some of them had been done two years earlier, resulting in a certain amount of historical confusion only cleared up much later).
From this time on, Larionov begins to take part regularly in the “Union of Youth” exhibitions in St. Petersburg.
1911
Portrait of Mikhail Larionov
and his Orderly during his
Military Service
Cubism is publicly affirmed at the “Salon des indépendants” (spring) and at the “Salon d’automne” in Paris. The issue of Cubism is much discussed in Russia towards the end of the year, mainly owing to the Burliuk brothers, David and Nicholas, who are its leading interpreters and theorists. The Russian press closely follows the latest developments in Paris and thus Russian artists are able to keep abreast of the latest novelties in Western art. Mikhail Larionov, David Burliuk and Vladimir Markov exchange letters with Kandinsky who has by now finished writing his aesthetic treatise On the Spiritual in Art, published at Christmas 1911 (but dated 1912) and he and Franz Marc were working on Der Blaue Reiter [The Blue Rider] Almanac. At the first All-Russian Convention of Artists in St. Petersburg in December Nikolai Kulbin gives a public reading of an abridged version of On the Spiritual.
In the course of this year Larionov distances himself gradually from the aesthetic positions of the “Knave of Diamonds” group whom he accuses of following French painting too slavishly. His position now shifts toward Russian popular culture (Primitivism), non-European cultures (Chinese art, African art, etc) and what he considers as non-cultural trends (“Lubiki” folk imagery, children’s art, advertising images and so forth).
Natalya Goncharova, Kazimir Malewicz, Alexei Morgunov, Vladimir Tatlin, Aleksandr Shevchenko and Georges Le Dantu follow in the wake of Larionov’s dissidence. In 1913 the last two artists will form the nucleus of the Rayonist movement together with Larionov and Goncharova.
In the autumn Larionov founds the “Donkey’s Tail” group, borrowing the name derisively from the famous hoax perpetrated by a handful of Montmartre painters at the “Salon des indépendants” – a mystification organized for the benefit of the paper Fantasio, which had published a fake “Excessivist” manifesto. The author was purportedly an avant-garde artist named Boronali, a name coined from that of the donkey Aliboron owned by the proprietor of the Montmartre cabaret “Le Lapin agile,” an establishment frequented by the local bohemia (including Picasso and his friends). Painted with Aliboron’s tail, the manifesto-canvas titled Sunset over the Adriatic was intended as a mockery of the late Impressionist style.
One of the first to join the “Donkey’s Tail” society is the writer and art critic Sergei Pavlovich Bobrov. On 31 December Bobrov gives a public talk entitled “The Bases of the New Russian Painting” in which he puts forward certain principles he identifies as the theoretical foundation of Larionov and Goncharova’s art (intuitive bases of the creative act and emphasis of the picture plane, which he described as “Russian purism”).
The traditional dependence on French art is openly rejected. A few months later Goncharova declares publicly that such a dependence is not possible. She posits a “return to national sources.”
At the end of the year Larionov takes stock and gives free rein to his personal thoughts, the concrete expression of which is a “One-Day Exhibition” (8-21 December) at Moscow’s Society for Free Aesthetics (also called Artistic and Literary Circle). The exhibition is held in the town house of Madame Vostriakova and includes a discussion soirée devoted to Larionov’s work. The artist is henceforth regarded as the leader of avant-garde painting in Moscow.
1912
January
Second exhibition of the “Jack of Diamonds” society featuring work by the Burliuk brothers, Aleksandra Exter, Wassily Kandinsky, Piotr Konchalovsky, Aleksander Kuprin, Nicolai Kulbin, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Machkov. However, Larionov and his circle do not take part in it.
Thanks to the exhibition’s Western participants this is the largest exhibition of modern art in Russia at the time. French artists include Derain, Van Dongen, Matisse, Picasso, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier and Léger (whose large-scale composition Essai pour trois portraits had already been shown at the “Salon d’automne” in 1911). Particularly brilliant is the German Expressionist contribution, comprising works by Ernst Ludwig Kircher, August Macke, Franz Marc, Max Pechstein and Gabrielle Münter.
February
The “Jack of Diamonds” society organizes a public discussion of the new art. David Burliuk presents the first Russian interpretation of Cubism. Larionov and Goncharova take a clear stand against the “Jack of Diamonds” group. They state with panache that their art is evolving altogether independently from Parisian Cubism (which will remain true in Larionov’s case but not for Goncharova). One of Larionov’s works features at the second “Blaue Reiter” exhibition at the Hans Goltz Gallery in Munich, Germany.
Mars
An exhibition of paintings is organized in Moscow from 24 March to 21 April under the auspices of Larionov’s “Donkey’s Tail” group. This includes thirty-nine primitivist-type works by Larionov, mainly on military themes (soldiers and barracks). The catalogue does not list his Rayonist works as yet. The other participants are Georges Le Dantu, Malewicz, Woldemar Matvejs (Vladimir Markov), Aleksei Morgunov, Aleksandr Shevchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, Marc Chagall and Natalya Goncharova, whose works spark off a scandal that results in the show being temporarily shut down, owing to the fact that the Russian censorship considers that works with a religious subject cannot decently be shown in an exhibition entitled “The Donkey’s Tail.”
Faithful to his concept of a perpetually shifting avant-garde Larionov dissolves “The Donkey’s Tail” group at the end of the show, declaring in an interview that he is making this decision in order to prevent the avant-garde becoming institutionalized.
Each of the exhibitions that Larionov will organize subsequently will have a different title.
Illustration de Mikhaïl Larionov
The year is also marked by the artist’s collaboration with the poet Kruchenykh, with whom he produces several lithographed booklets: Pommade (published in February 1913), Poluzhivoj (Half-Living, also February 1913); Starinnaja Ljubov (Former Love, which contains the first Rayonnist lithographs, October 1912). With Vladimir Tatlin, Natalya Goncharova and Nikolai Rogovin, Larionov illustrates Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov’s book Mirskonca (The Upside-Down World, December), the cover of which consists of the first collage in the history of Russian books. The collages are the work of Goncharova and each copy is unique.
December : Two Rayonist works, Glass (Rayonist Procedure) and Rayonist Study, are exhibited at the annual “World of Art” show in Moscow, a rather “traditionalist” salon that will travel to St. Petersburg in January 1913 and a month later to Kiev.
1913
March-avril
« La Cible »
Annual exhibition of Laronov’s “Target” group. The participants include Chagall, Le Dantu, Malewicz (Cubo-Futusist works), Shevchenko, Kirill Zdanevich. Larionov exhibits primitivist works, among them the series of Seasons as well as several Rayonnist works. Goncharova contributes more Rayonnist works than does Larionov. The exhibition also includes the first public showing of works by Niko Pirosmanishvili, a Georgian primitive artist whom Larionov presents as a Russian Douanier Rousseau.
Concurrently, Larionov organizes in a Moscow venue an exhibition of icons and folk images. In addition to these Russian works the show features Persian miniatures, Chinese folk images, Japanese prints, French images d’Épinal and other such works, mostly from Larionov’s personal collection. The artist also writes the catalogue introduction.
Published the Rayonist manifesto as a booklet in the month of April, claiming that it was written during the summer of 1912. This practice of backdating works was one of the avant-garde manipulations that Larionov will practice throughout his life.
The following year excerpts from this text are published in French in the Parisian magazine Montjoie! to coincide with the artist’s solo show at the Galerie Paul Guillaume (June 1914).
The first study of Larionov’s work (and of that of Goncharova) is published in Moscow in a limited edition of 525 copies. Written by the Futurist Ilya Zdanevich (Iliazde), the book contains a rich selection of original lithographs, numerous reproductions of paintings and a succinct catalogue of the artist’s work. Henceforth a number of already approximate dates will give rise to errors that will persist until Larionov’s death.
July
The Donkey’s Tail and Target miscellany is issued containing a new version of the Rayonist manifesto. It also includes a large selection of reproductions of Rayonist works, some of which are the work of Larionov’s students Sergei Romanovich, Yasinasky, Vyacheslav Levkievsky and others. Larionov publishes contributions using the pseudonyms Parkin and Khudiakov.
The new manifesto at the beginning of the miscellany is entitled “Rayonists and Futurists,” the overt purpose of which is to act as a reply to the Futurist manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” which the Burliuk circle had published at the end of the year 1912. Henceforth Larioniov will engage in an open struggle with the other Futurist groups. He tends to take the position that he is the only “true” Russian Futurist. He is opposed to the St. Petersburg “Union of Youth” group and personally to Malewicz, as is obvious from the latter’s correspondence with the “Union of Youth” secretary (autumn 1913) and the fact that Larionov refuses to attend that society’s public soirées in the spring of the same year. Larionov’s Rayonism distances itself chiefly from the experimental work of Malewicz, who is seen as the leader of the Cubo-Futurist and Transrational movement.
September
Exhibits several works at the “Erste deutscher Herbstsalon” (First German Autumn Salon) organized by Herwarth Walden, the director of the Der Sturm review and owner of the Berlin art gallery of the same name. Several German Expressionists take an interest in his paintings. However, writing to Kandinsky, Franz Marc expresses mixed – if not positively negative – feelings for the Moscow painter. This does not prevent Walden from being keenly interested in the Russian avant-garde and from planning several solo shows for new Russian artists, including Larionov. Scheduled to open in the 1914-1915 season, the latter exhibition is cancelled owing to the war.
October
Larionov sends a work from the Soldiers series to Roger Fry’s “Second Post Impressionist Exhibition” at the Grafton Galleries in London.
Responding to theatrical spectacles staged by the “Union of Youth” (Mayakovsky’s Tragedy with sets by Pavel Filonov and Kruchenykh’s Victory over the Sun with sets by Malewicz), Larionov announces that he will create and mount various theatrical projects, but none of them actually sees the light of day.
Towards the end of the year
Paints the first substantial series of Rayonist paintings.
December
Serving as an intermediary between organizers of art exhibitions, Larionov starts corresponding with Sonia and Robert Delaunay and proposes to the latter devoting several rooms to the French artist’s work in an upcoming annual exhibition of works by his Rayonist group. Larionov briefly envisages once again organizing a major exhibition of the latest French and Russian trends. He throws himself into planning exhibitions of Picasso’s work, Art nègre works, and other shows.
Christmas
With his friend and biographer the Transrational poet Ilya Zdanevich, Larionov publishes in the magazine Argus the Futurist manifesto “Why We Paint Ourselves”.
Larionov and his friends parade through the streets of Moscow, their faces daubed with Futurist (Rayonist) painting.
1914
Mikhail Larionov
January
The “leader of the Italian Futurist movement” Filippo Tomaso Marinetti delivers a series of lectures in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Several Russian Futurists, among them Larionov, feel threatened by Marinetti’s “imperialism” and plan a number of actions against his “cultural colonization.” On 29 January a violent interview with the latter appears in the newspaper Nov. This results in a polemic between Larionov and Malewicz, who rises to the Italian guest’s defence. But this is no more than an oratorical clash: in the future Larionov’s relations with the leader of Italian Futurism are amicable (exchange of letters and visits to Rome by the Russian artist).
February
Hoping to exhibit at the Paris “Salon des independents,” Larionov asks Sonia and Robert Delaunay to register him with the “Salon” society.
April
The annual exhibition of the Larionov group opens on the 6th and runs until the 20th. This year the exhibition is called Michen (the Target), reflecting Larionov’s interest at the time in Robert Delaunay’s art. The “Target” features a sizable selection of Larionov’s paintings from 1911 and 1912, primarily works in the “primitive” vein. The show also includes art by Malewicz, Chagall, Goncharova, Le Dantu, Kiril Zdanevich (the poet’s brother), Ivan Larionov (the painter’s brother), the Rayonists Vyacheslav Levkievsky, Sergei Romanovith, Viktor Bart, Aleksandr Shevchenko and others, as well as paintings by the Georgian primitivist Niko Pirosmanishvili, children’s drawings, primitive works by “anonymous artists” and “advertising placards” which the artists views as works of a “non-cultural,” hence “primitive,” works. Larionov himself produces a number of works in the style of “newspaper advertisements” (1913).
Having failed to exhibit at the “Salon des independents,” Larionov decides to organize a joint show of his and Goncharova’s work in Paris. Aleksandr Exter and the circle of Russian artists who gravitate around Apollinaire’s magazine Les Soirées de Paris orchestrate this event. The exhibition opens in June at the Galerie Paul Guillaume and is the gallery’s first art show. Guillaume Apollinaire writes the preface to the catalogue; henceforth Larionov and the poet keep regularly in touch with each other. Apollinaire describes the opening as an important cultural event. Larionov and Goncharova travel to France for the exhibition and extend their visit to late autumn.
August
The outbreak of World War One obliges Lanionov to return precipitously to Moscow. The paintings featured in the Paris show are sent on to Berlin where Herwarth Walden plans to host a solo show for the artist in the autumn, but owing to the war this project never materializes. Years later Larionov recovers a portion of the works submitted to the “Salon des indépendents,” which in the interval have made their way back to Paris where they are exhibited.
Upon returning to Moscow Larionov, a reserve officer, is mobilized and leaves for the front.
On 30 August he is seriously wounded on the German front. He spends a long time in military hospitals. At the end of the year he is discharged. In January 1915 pictures of “Futurist heroes” who have taken part of the fighting are published in the Muscovite press.
1915
April
Participates in Moscow in the last modernist exhibition of the Futurist tendency. Named “The Year 1915,” this large heterogeneous fair is mainly devoted to the art of painting. Nathan Altman, David Burliuk, Marc Chagall (24 works, the largest showing of his work in Russia before the end of the war), Robert Falk, Goncharova, Alexei Grishchenko, Kandinsky, Piotr Konchalovsky, Aleksandr Kuprin, Aristarkh Lentulov, Machkov, Malewicz, Tatlin, Martirios Saryan, Georgii Yakulov and a host of others participate in the exhibition.
Natalya Goncharova show at the Galerie Sauvage in Paris
On 23 June, on an invitation by Serge Diaghilev, Larionov and Goncharova leave Moscow for Switzerland where the artist hopes to complete his convalescence after the wounds he has sustained on the front. Under the aegis of the great Russian impresario, Goncharova works on sets and costumes for avant-garde productions. The couple’s unexpected and brusque departure turns out to be permanent; neither of them will ever set foot again in Russia.
1916 – 1917
Larionov works on performances staged by Diaghilev. He and Goncharova exhibit Rayonist works in Rome. A translation of his 1912 manifesto is published in Italian under the title “Radiantismo.” This is one of the few writings in this long period to inform Western art lovers about Rayonism, the first abstract movement directly derived from the Impressionist experience to which Larionov remained profoundly attached all his life.
1918
Installé à Paris à partir du mois de novembre 1917, Larionov essaie de reprendre ses activités avant-gardistes, y compris dans le domaine des publications. Intitulée « L’art décoratif théâtral moderne », une exposition avec Gontcharova a lieu à Paris du 16 avril au 7 mai à la Galerie Sauvage. Larionov y présente 112 œuvres. Un album, richement illustré, est préparé avec les œuvres théâtrales exposées à cette occasion. Il sera publié en 1919 par les éditions « La cible » que Larionov espère faire revivre à Paris. L’auteur du texte est l’ami moscovite du groupe larionovien, le poète Valentin Parnakh, séjournant à l’époque également à Paris.
1919
In May Larionov moves into an apartment on Rue Jacques Callot (above the famous La Palette café in Paris) where he will spend the rest of his life with Goncharova. The Galerie Barbazanges in Paris hosts a joint exhibition for him and Goncharova under the same title as their show of the previous year.
1920-1922
Designs for Serge Diaghilev’s performances Chout, with music by Prokofiev (premiered on 17 May 1921), and Le Renard (8 May 1922), with music by Stravinsky (Paris Opera).
1922–1923
Together with his friend the Transrational poet Ilya Zdanevich, who moves to Paris in late November 1921, Larionov takes part in organizing numerous Dadist-type events, for which he designs the programmes and posters. Continues to work for different Parisian theatres. Larionov plays an active part in the renewal of Paris’s artistic life at this time. His activities are even identified briefly with the Dadaist movement. Subsequently he will become increasingly associated with the, for the most part, profoundly conservative Russian émigré circles in Paris (at the end of the 1920s he will even exhibit with the “World of Art” group in Paris).
1927
After considerable efforts Larionov finally regains a small portion of the paintings left in his Moscow studio in 1915. On this occasion he gifts several of his works to Russian public collections. His personal archives and works on paper are not included in this donation. Apart from a study of him by the art historian Nikolai Punin published this same year, Larionov’s work begins to fall into neglect. Shortly thereafter it is completely rejected by the Soviet censorship on the grounds that it is a “bourgeois production,” a condemnation later aggravated by the artist’s status as a (white) Russian émigré.
1929
Death of his friend Serge Diaghilev in Venice. This marks the end of an important period in the artist’s life. In 1930 Larionov organizes a “Diaghilev Retrospective” in Paris as a tribute.
1936
Participates in Alfred Barr’s large and extremely important “Cubism and Abstract Art” exhibition at the New York MoMA. Barr formulates one of the first analyses of Rayonism. Henceforth Larionov’s place in the history of modern art seems secure.
Ailing from sequels of his 1914 wound, Larionov’s health declines worryingly. Despite continuous, sometimes exhausting treatments that will continue until the end of his life Larionov is obliged to husband his energy and strength.
1948
December
The art critic Michel Seuphor organizes the “Rayonism” exhibition at the Galerie des Deux-Iles with the aim of re-establishing the artist’s reputation in Paris.
1949
Overcoming Sonia Delaunay’s opposition, Seuphor includes Larionov’s Rayonist work in his large-scale panorama “L’art abstrait : ses origines, ses premiers maîtres” (Abstract Art : its Origins and Early Masters) at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. This exhibition and Seuphor’s book of the same name mark a new stage in the historical re-evaluation of modern art. The artist will henceforth seek to regain the pre-eminence he feels he deserves in the history of modern art.
1950
Beginning of a long illness triggered during his stay in London.
1961
Camilla Gray organizes at the Arts Council in Leeds and subsequently in London the first major modern retrospective of Larionov and Goncharova’s work. Two years later this exhibition travels to the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. A year after the London exhibition Gray’s book The Great Experiment : Russian Art 1863-1922 is published, and Larionov’s oeuvre is at last presented in the context of Russian avant-garde art.
The same year a “Larionov-Goncharova” retrospective is held at the Galerie Beyeler in Basel (Switzerland) and at the Schwarz Gallery in Milan (Italy).
1962
Death of Natalya Goncharova on 17 November.
1963
On 28 May Larionov marries Alexandra Tomiline, his friend and model of the 1920s.
1964
Death of the artist on 10 May at Fontenay-aux-Roses (Paris). He is buried at the cemetery of Ivry where Goncharova rests too.
1967
First posthumous retrospective of Larionov’s work at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, France.
1980-2000
The first exhibition of Larionov’s work in the URSS opens at the Russian Museum in Leningrad and later travels to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. At the last moment the State ideological censorship vetoes the publication of the catalogue.
Death of Alexandra Tomiline-Larionov (born 24 October 1900) on 14 September 1987 at a clinic in Lausanne (Switzerland). In a will written in 1973 she leaves the body of Larionov and Goncharova’s work in the artist’s Paris studio to the Soviet government. However, a substantial portion of this legacy is misappropriated.
Only toward the end of 1999, nearly four decades after Goncharova’s death and thirty-five years after that of Mikhail Larionov, does the first joint Larionov-Goncharova retrospective open at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.