Spanish Dancer

March – April 1912

The Donkey's Tail: over fifty paintings

More than fifty of her paintings hung at the first Donkey's Tail exhibition, which Larionov organised as a break with European influence; the censor confiscated “The Evangelists” as blasphemous.

autumn 1913

Solo show on Bolshaya Dmitrovka

Goncharova's largest solo show (together with the spring show in St Petersburg, over 700 works of 1900–1913) closed with the first catalogue-monograph on her and Larionov, edited by I. M. Zdanevich; its preface carries the famous words about turning away “from the West” to the East, whose authorship is disputed.

1914

Designs “The Golden Cockerel” for Diaghilev

On Alexandre Benois's recommendation Diaghilev invited Goncharova to design the opera-ballet “The Golden Cockerel”; after its first performances in Paris and London succeeded, their collaboration continued.

spring 1914

The Synod seizes 22 paintings in St Petersburg

By sanction of the Chief Procurator of the Synod, 22 paintings were removed from her solo show at Nadezhda Dobychina's Art Bureau, although a church censor had cleared them in advance; Count I. I. Tolstoy, Baron Nikolai Wrangel and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky came to her defence, and the paintings were returned.

June 1915

Leaves Russia for the Ballets Russes

Diaghilev invited Goncharova and Larionov to work permanently for his Ballets Russes, and they left Russia, settling first in Switzerland. She felt the parting from her homeland keenly, as she wrote to the poet Sergei Bobrov.

1915–1962 · Residência

Paris