Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova

Monsieur Paul Szigeti (gift from the artist), 1960s
Thence by descent

This painting is in beautiful condition and should be hung as is. The paint layer is clean and although it may be very lightly varnished, it is not visible or disturbing. Gonchaova painted this picture directly onto a piece of board, which is faintly visible in a few places, yet this does not compromise the paint layer and it has not noticeably acidified. The paint layer is clean and there appear to be no retouches. The small holes in the corners are original and there are no other losses or damages. The picture is in excellent condition and should be hung as is. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Goncharova's paintings meld Western modernist styles and Russian and Eastern traditions. She avidly explored Neo-primitivism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism and Rayism, adapting and integrating motifs from each style while creating complexly structured canvases replete with geometric patterns, dynamic colors and thick impasto. Her unique style was progressively more dramatic, marked by a loud yet harmonious palette, bold outlines and a flattened sense of space. Goncharova also developed her own motifs and characteristic choice of subjects, which included peasants (whom she painted at home on her family estate in the rural village of Negaevo) as well as still life compositions (which she laid out meticulously in the setting of her studio).

Goncharova's early oeuvre has been labeled her Neo-Primitivist period, in large part because it drew heavily upon so-called primitive art forms. In general, primitivism is a term associated with the age of Enlightenment, relating to the material culture of peoples who were considered barbaric and uncivilized. By the early twentieth century, many Western Europeans (and Russians as well) who were disillusioned with modern civilization found their discontents rooted in their very antithetical relationship to nature, and so they found an alternative in the distant cultures of so-called primitive peoples, those not yet touched by modernity.

Primitivism was reinvented as a "profoundly national phenomenon" in the context of Russian avant-garde art, and even given its own Russian title, Neo-primitivism, as defined by Alexander Schevchenko. This unique title alluded to the perceived sources of this new painterly style, which were fundamentally and metaphorically Russian as well, for in creating their Neo-primitivist works, vanguard artists—Goncharova, Larionov, and Malevich in particular—looked to Russian peasant culture and art, including the popular print or lubok and the traditional orthodox icon. Reinforcing the peasant as a symbol of national identity, they sought to revive indigenous Russian culture and rediscover their own national artistic origins.

Goncharova's Neo-primitivist style was also linked to the recent Modernist trends practiced in Western Europe by such artists as Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso and Braque. Perhaps the earliest and most direct influence of Western European Modernism on Goncharova's career was channeled through her partner, Mikhail Larionov. In 1907, Larionov traveled to Paris and London with Sergei Diaghilev, future founder of the Ballets Russes, and there he witnessed firsthand a wide array of works by Gauguin, Van Gogh, Denis, Matisse and others. The timing of this trip corresponds with a traceable evolution in Larionov's own style and in Goncharova's as well, which suggests his observations were significant for both of them.

A number of events occurred in the early 1900s that allowed for cross-cultural integration in the fine arts, and thus Goncharova gained access to concurrent Western European imagery and ideas. Journals like Mir Iskusstva (1898-1904), Zolotoe Runo (1906-1909/10) and Apollon (1909-1917) reproduced various post-Impressionist paintings in Russia, and certain Western European artists became popular there; two such artists, Maurice Denis and Henri Matisse, traveled to Moscow in 1906 and 1911, respectively. Meanwhile, Russian art critics were increasingly aware of Western European Modernist values and aesthetics; for example, critic Sergei Makovsky studied Western European trends and called for Russian artists to follow suit, expressing a desire for nation-wide evolution away from the critical and nostalgic art that had pervaded the national art scene since the foundation of the Itinerant movement. Furthermore, a number of Western European works were brought to Russia, either for public display (in the case of the three Zolotoe Runo exhibitions, starting in 1908), or as part of the private collections of well-known art patrons Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, who opened their homes to art students and eventually amassed a combined total of more than 350 French Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings.

Autumn Colors underscores Goncharova's awareness of Matisse's Fauvism as well as her keen interest in Picasso and Braque's Cubism. Following their example, and perhaps the example of Russian and Eastern folk art, she deconstructs the stems and leaves of the central vase of flowers into 2-dimensional patterns, dividing them against a bifurcated light and dark background while establishing their monumental presence with bold contour lines and thick impasto. The fruit and autumnal leaves below help to saturate the composition with color and distinguish spatial planes through visual occlusion.