Mikhail Larionov and the Russian Avant-Garde - Tapa dura

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1994
"Parton has been highly successful in unraveling [Larionov's] story.... His is the first trustworthy account of Larionov's life and development.... Parton's book ... secures [Larionov] a more definite place than he previously had in the history of modern art and gives us a firm base to consider it from."--Norbert Lynton, The Times Literary Supplement

"Parton's study of Mikhail Larionov is one of the most important contributions to the recent literature on Russian modernism."--Christina Lodder, The Burlington Magazine

". . .[a] lively, kinetically illustrated monograph."--Publishers Weekly

"Larionov had many talents and an all-enveloping curiosity. It is clear from Anthony Parton's exact and lengthy researches that he took in everything. . . .This is a detailed, exact and exhilarating account of work well done and affections that did not stale."--New York Times Book Review

"Parton's study sets a new standard for scholarly books on Russian art. . . . [H]e discusses as no one before has done the intellectual setting of Larionov's work. . . . [A] most impressive achievement."--Choice

"[Parton's] is the first trustworthy account of Larionov's life and development, notable for the absence of hyperbole which previous celebrants have expended on it. . . . Parton's book, while excusing nothing, secures [Larionov] a more definite place than he previously had in the history of modern art and gives us a firm base to consider it from."--Times Literary Supplement

A revolutionary multi-media artist and flamboyant personality, Mikhail Larionov galvanized the art scene in the early twentieth century, striving for a truly Russian style of art to rival the avant-garde movement of Europe and setting the stage for Russian constructivism. With his life-long partner, Nataliya Goncharova, he led his generation in exploring mysticism and shamanism and sparked a counter-culture that flourished in the cabarets of Moscow. The development of his career, however, has long eluded the grasp of historians, partly because Larionov, ever conscious of his role in art history, backdated many of his paintings, set designs, and graphic works. In this richly illustrated book, which offers an in-depth treatment of the life and oeuvre of Larionov, Anthony Parton reconstructs an important episode in the story of the Russian avant-garde.