Mikhail Larionov was born at Tiraspol, near Odessa. In 1898 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Isaac Levitan and Valentin Serov. He was suspended three times for his radical outlook. In 1900 he met Natalya Sergeevna Goncharova and formed a life-long relationship with her.

From 1902 his style was Impressionism. After a visit to Paris in 1906 he moved into Post-Impressionism and then a Neo-primitive style, which derived partly from Russian sign painting. In 1908 he staged the Golden Fleece exhibition in Moscow, which included paintings by international avant-garde artists such as Matisse, Derain, Braque, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Other group shows promoted by him included Tatlin, Chagall and Malevich.

Larionov was a founding member of two important Russian artistic groups Jack of Diamonds (1909-1911) and the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912-1913). He gave names to both groups. His first solo show was for one day in Moscow in 1911.

In 1913, he created Rayonism, which was the first creation of near-abstract art in Russia. In 1915 he left Russia and worked with the ballet owner Sergei Diaghilev in Paris on the productions of the Ballets Russes.

In 2001, the Central Bank of Transnistria minted a silver coin honoring this native of today's Transnistria, as part of a series of memorable coins called The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie.


Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Larionov

Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) studied at the State Moscow Art School under the guidance of Archipoff, Pasternak, Sseroff and Korowin. He began exhibiting in Moscow in 1902 and organized the exhibition ‘Bubnowyj Walett’ that later became an art movement.

Settling in Paris in 1915, he presented his works at the Salon d’Automne, the Indépendants and the Salon des Tuileries. A special exhibition took place at the Berlin gallery Der Sturm in 1919.

Larionov began his career as an impressionist, was influenced by Cézanne for a while and developed the Rayonism as a new style. Since 1915, he was mainly dedicated to theater art and created stage designs for the Ballets Russes and Parisian theaters. With regards to the tradition of Russian peasant art he transferred its powerful primitive shapes and vivid colors to his geometrical marionettes. Larionov made an important contribution to the development of the Russian avant-garde, especially the Russian Neo-primitivism, and coined the Russian futurist book art. (msc)

Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov was born in 1881 in Tiraspol, Russia.

Larionov's preparatory study for the work of THE SPRING of 1912 is kept at the Center Georges Pompidou.

Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov passed away in 1964 in France.

Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Russian art.

His lifelong partner was fellow avant-garde artist, Natalia Goncharova.

Source: Wikipedia