Barber

Created in 1907, 'Barber' captures Mikhail Larionov during a pivotal moment of artistic evolution. This was just a year after his transformative visit to Paris in 1906, when he began moving away from Impressionism toward Post-Impressionism and the Neo-primitive style that would define his next period. At 26 years old and recently suspended from the Moscow School of Painting for his radical outlook, Larionov was already exploring the bold, unconventional subjects that would make him a pioneer of Russian avant-garde art.

The choice of a barber as subject reflects Larionov's growing interest in everyday Russian life and folk culture—influences that would soon lead him toward Neo-primitivism, partly derived from Russian sign painting. This was the artist at a crossroads: he had absorbed the lessons of French modernism but was beginning to turn toward distinctly Russian sources of inspiration. Within a few years, he would become a founding member of the Knave of Diamonds (1909) and the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912), staging groundbreaking exhibitions that challenged Moscow's artistic establishment. His lifelong partner Natalia Goncharova was already at his side, and together they would eventually pioneer Rayonism, Russia's first near-abstract art movement, in 1913.