Goncharova Emilia

Emilia Goncharova was born in Chuguevo in Ukraine in 1938. After graduating from the art department of Grekov Odessa Art School she taught drawing, art and composition at Donetsk Art School and then worked as a production designer at the Art Fund. In 1968 her artworks were exhibited for the first time at the national show in Kiev: bright Crimean landscapes, Donbass residents and Makeevka locals, the views of Donetsk. In 1971 after the exhibition of the artists of Ukrainian SSR in Moscow at the Central Exhibition Hall Emilia Goncharova became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

In 1974 the artist was invited to work in Norilsk at the workshops of the Russian Art Fund. There in Norilsk a completely new period of the artist's creative activity began. She studied everyday objects, clothes, lifestyle of the indigenous peoples of the North, met local shamans, learned how to read drawings and ornaments on their national outfits and shoes, started weaving in tapestry and carpets, dressing deer skin. She flew to the remotest areas of the Far North on helicopter, where she painted severe Northern landscapes from nature. Coming back to the studio she put down her sketches on paper, giving preference to pastels and large sizes, using sand paper as a basis.

Since 1986 Emilia Goncharova has been living in Moscow. In December 1997 she had a personal exhibition in Norilsk Art Gallery. For many years she participated in the “Russia's North" show taking place in Moscow (1991, 1993, 1998, 2000). In 2000 she had another personal exhibition at the Exhibition hall of the Russian Academy of Arts. She also had successful personal shows in Luxembourg (1990-1991), at the Central House of Artists (Moscow, 1995) and at the Paris gallery "Natalie" (1995).

The artworks by Emilia Goncharova are presented in the collections of Norilsk Art Gallery, at the Museum of the History Norilsk Industrial Region, as well as in the private collections both in Russia and abroad.