Natalia Goncharova (Russian,1881–1962), The Christian Host, no. 9 from the series Mystical Images of War [Voina: misticheskie obrazy voiny], 1914, lithograph, 10 x 13 inches. University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library, The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
Natalia Goncharova’s Mystical Images of War, 1914
February 1–March 22, 2015 in the Scholz Family Works on Paper Gallery
This exhibition presents a dramatic portfolio of fourteen lithographs by the Russian avant-garde artist Natalia Goncharova (1881–1962) from the Hesburgh Libraries Collection. Published in the fall of 1914, the lithographs represent one of the earliest and most profound artistic responses to the outbreak of the Great War. They tell an epic and "mystical" story about the eternal struggle between good and evil, destruction and redemption, in which national, traditional, religious, apocalyptic, and contemporary images are intertwined.
Co-sponsored by the Hesburgh Libraries, Snite Museum of Art, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and organized by Russian and East European Studies Librarian Natasha Lyandres, the presentation is part of a year-long series of lectures, courses, performances, exhibitions, and other events commemorating the First World War.