Exhibition by Natalia Goncharova

Natalia Goncharova’s bold and innovative work was influential among her contemporaries, crossing the boundaries that typically existed between 20th-century art forms. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s most innovative period from the early 1900s to the 1920s, when she inspired experimental artists in both Russia and Western Europe. The exhibition features more than one hundred works, including a large number of paintings, but also illustrations, costumes, sketches of set designs, and recordings of ballet performances. Almost all the works in the exhibition will be seen in Finland for the first time.

Goncharova’s extensive artistic work was inspired by folk art and religious icons. Her art was also contradictory: Goncharova could at one moment be taking part in a street performance in Moscow with a painted face, and at the next be working on creating religious art inspired by old icons. In addition to visual art, Goncharova designed costumes and sets for Sergei Diaghilev’s famous Ballets Russes. She also created designs for fashion houses in Moscow and Paris, was involved in avant-garde cinema, and provided illustrations for experimental poems.

ateneum.fi