Jelena Guro (1877–1913)

Elena Guro was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, the daughter of Genrikh Guro, an officer in the Russian Imperial Army of French descent, and his wife Anna Chistyakova, an amateur artist. Her sister Ekaterina Guro Nizen also became a writer. Elena spent her childhood in the village of Novosely near Pskov and at her father's estate in Luga. From 1890 to 1893, she studied art in St Petersburg. From 1903 to 1905. she studied in the private studio of Jan Ciągliński, where she met her future husband, artist and musician Mikhail Matyushin. In 1904, she illustrated the Russian translation of a book of fairy tales by George Sand. A year later, she made her literary debut with her first short story, "Early Spring," published in an anthology. In 1906, she and Matyushin married and moved to the art school of Elizaveta Zvantseva, where she worked under Léon Bakst and others. In 1908, she left the school and established her own studio. Her home in St. Petersburg became an important gathering place for discussions on avant-garde art and literature. Her first book of prose, poetry, and plays, The Hurdy-Gurdy, came out in 1909. In 1910, she contributed to the journal Trap for Judges, one of the first publications of the Russian Futurists, and also helped support it financially. Her second book, Autumnal Dream, with her own illustrations, was published in 1912. She gave herself a doubled name in this work, Elena Guro and Eleonora von Notenberg. In her paintings, Elena developed theories of color based on Art Nouveau principles and on Scandinavian folk art. She was the most prominent and influential female artist in the Futurist movement. She died of leukemia at age 36 in 1913 at her country house in Uusikirkko on the Finnish coast. Several of her poems and two works of her prose were published posthumously in the Futurist collection The Three, and in the journal Union of Youth. The Little Camels of the Sky, her third book, appeared in 1914.