Painting. Russian artists. Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964)

Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov, a Russian painter, stage designer, print maker, illustrator and writer of Moldova birth, although a leader of the Russian avant-garde before World War I, came to prominence in the West due to his work for S.Diaghilev.
The son of a doctor and pharmacist Larionov was brought up by his grandparents. After finishing Voskresensky Technical High School in Moscow in 1898, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Here he studied under V. Serov and K. Korovin. Larionov's works were soon noticed by collectors and critics. In 1906 he was invited to exhibit with the Union of Russian Artists at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. There he showed his Impressionist Roses, of 1905.
Through an excursion into Symbolism Larionov met Nikolay Ryabushinsky, editor of Zolotoye Runo (Golden Fleece). Larionov collaborated with him and in 1908 helped him to organise the Golden Fleece exhibition of Modern French painting in Moscow. As a result of it many young Russian artists turned away from the predominant Symbolist aesthetic to embrace the brighter palette and cruder forms of Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. Larionov began to explore Post-Impressionism in 1910. He adopted more brilliant colours and coarse brushwork of the Fauves in the series of works such as Evening after Rain. During this period Larionov appreciated simple, expressive, naive forms of folk art, signboards and lubki (old Russian prints).

In 1910 Larionov was expelled from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for staging a student protest against the conventional teaching methods.
Larionov was a founder-member of the Jack of Diamond group. He made a remarkable series of paintings during his military service, including the Soldiers, of 1910. It was an outrages work in style and content. The colours are strong, the brushwork is coarse, the figures are distorted, the composition is unstructured, and vulgar comments are scrawled, like graffiti, across the canvas.

Larionov soon seceded from the Jack of Diamond group to found the more radical Donkey's Tail, which held an exhibition in March 1912. Larionov became closely connected with the literary avantgarde. He illustrated Russian Futurist books by Aleksey Kruchonykh and Vladimir Khlebnikov. In 1912 Larionov initiated two influential movements. Ray ism was a non-objective style inspired by Italian Futurism and elaborated by Larionov in three manifestos of 1913. Neo-primitivism represented the development of his Fauvism and Expressionist interests. These two movements were officially launched at the Mishen' (Target) exhibition in 1913. The reception was controversial. Larionov's Futurist activities brought him public notoriety in Russia by such painting as Boulevard Venus, of 1913, executed in Cubo-Futurist style and established him as the leading artist of the European avant-garde.

In April 1914 Larionov and N. Goncharova visited Paris. There they held an exhibition at the Galerie Paul Guillaume and befriended Guillaume Apollinaire, who admired and publicised their work. On the declaration of war Larionov was conscripted to the Russian army, injured in the battle of the Masurian Lakes and spent three months in hospital.

In 1915 at the request of S. Diaghilev Larionov came to Switzerland to make designs for his ballet. In 1916 Larionov travelled to Spain and Italy and made designs for three Diaghilev's ballets. In 1919 Larionov settled permanently in Paris. His cultural life was very active. He was on friendly terms with the Cubists and Dada, he exhibited at the Paris Salons and held one-man show in New York (1922) and Tokyo (1923). In 1928 he organised an exhibition of Contemporary French Art in Moscow.

Larionov was a graphic artist. His major graphic work is a series of 32 crudely executed pochoirs, published in Paris in 1928 under the title An Imaginary Voyage to Turkey. It is an unusual work as the prints bear no apparent relationship to the title of the folio. Taken as a whole the folio creates an enigma.

Throughout a decade Larionov worked for Diaghilev as a designer and artistic adviser. Larionov's startling costumes always caused an uproar. After Diaghilev's death the artist returned to painting. His figurative oils were executed with a restrained palette and were full of mystery.

The historic role of Rayism was recognised at the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art in New York in 1936. But Larionov did nothing to secure himself from obscurity until Michele Senphor organised the exhibition Le Ryonnisme 1909-14 in Paris in 1948. The last fourteen years of his life Larionov lived in poverty despite the fact that his friends organised historical exhibitions of his works in Paris in 1952, 1956, 1963, in London, Basle and Milan in 1961.
 

Literature: Book "Russian art" A.P. Minyar-Belorucheva