NATALIA GONTCHAROVA (Nagaïevo ou Laryzhino, 1881... Lot n° 7

THE STATION Moscow, 1913-1914 Oil on canvas Monogrammed lower right in Cyrillic H. 97.5 x W. 156 cm Provenance Artist's studio Former collection Dr. Boris Linde, Paris, 1950; Former private collection, Berlin, 1970 Former collection Dr. Horst Gregor, Berlin, 1972; Former collection SNZ Galleries, Wiesbaden Christie's sale, London, June 13, 2007, lot 113 Private collection, Paris Bibliography Denise Bazetoux, Natalia Goncharov: Her Work, Between Tradition and Modernity, Neuilly-sur-Marne, Arteprint, 2011, Tome 1, no. 779, reproduced in color p. 310 Antony Parton, The Art and design of Natalia Goncharova, Antique collectors' club, 1988, reproduced in color p. 199 Exhibition Probablement Natalia Goncharova, Moscow 1913, Cat. n° 631, Railway Station Certificate Jean Chauvelin dated 9/10/2006 The physico-chemical analyses carried out by the ArtAnalysis laboratory in June 2022 on the painting The Railway Station include a scientific imaging (macro-photography, reflectrography) as well as a study of the pigments (16 points). The imaging reveals an underlying pattern and cracks in the paint layer characteristic of Natalia Goncharova's style. The 16 spectra reveal pigments commonly used in Natalia Goncharova's work. The results communicated by the ArtAnalysis laboratory are based on comparable observations made by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) and on a long experience of technical analysis of Natalia Goncharova's paintings. For this painting The Railway Station, the technical analyses, especially the pigmentary analysis, the monogram painted in the mass, the canvas and its preparation are completely consistent with the proposed dating. They corroborate the reproduction of the painting in Antony Parton's study (1988, p. 199), its inscription in Denise Bazetoux's catalog raisonné (2011, I, n° 779) and Jean Chauvelin's certificate of authenticity (09 October 2006). The detailed report will be given to the buyer. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) In this painting, emblematic of Natalia Goncharova's cubo-futurist works, the intersecting lines, vigorously drawn, render the ambient agitation of the station platform where peasants rub shoulders with elegant women. The artist simultaneously depicted the mechanics of bodies and machines, the smoke-filled atmosphere and the starting of the locomotive in a cinematic sequence shot. This period marks the peak of her career as a painter. She signed the Manifesto of the Rayonists and Futurists (1913) written by Mikhail Larionov with whom she formed one of the most famous artist couples of the Russian avant-garde. They met at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1900. Together, they successively founded the Cézanne group Le Valet de Carreau (1910), then the neo-Primitivist group La Queue de l'Âne (1912) and finally theorized their own movement, Rayonism, inspired by Futurism. Natalia Goncharova gives a very singular interpretation, through the prism of Cubism. She inlays elements of urban signage, such as the number 32 here, into the background of these paintings. This dynamic vision of The Railway Station, almost noisy, resonates with Mikhail Kasyamov's first film, Futurist Cabaret No. 13 (1914), in which she participates as an actress (fig. 1). The Gallery K. I. Mikhailova Gallery devoted a first retrospective exhibition to her, with 773 works, in 1913. Paul Guillaume invited her to exhibit in his gallery in Paris in 1914. The following year, she left Russia for good.