Painter, graphic artist, stage designer and book designer. His father was a military medic. Larionov spent his childhood in Tiraspol, where he later produced his best series of Impressionist paintings from life. From 1898-1910 he (intermittently) studied at the MSPSA, under I.I.Levitan, K.A.Korovin and V.A.Serov. In 1900 he met and got to know N.S.Gonchrova. In the 1900s he became aware of contemporary trends in European painting from S.I.Shchukin and I.A.Morozov’s Moscow collection, and during a trip to Paris and London. He took part in exhibitions for the MSPSA, STAE, of the URA, World of Art, Golden Fleece and the Wreath groups. He participated in the Autumn Paris Salon and the Venice Biennale (1890-1900). In 1910 he organised exhibitions for, and named, the Jack of Diamonds group and later pre avant-garde exhibitions: The Donkey’s Tail (1912), The Target (1913), No.4 (1914). He also participated in the avant-garde exhibitions (The Union of Youth, The B Tram Route, 1915) and a number of exhibitions abroad (The Blue Rider in Munich and Post-Impressionists in London). The changes in the stages in M.F.Larionov’s creativity reflected the dynamics in the assimilation of innovatory trends in Russia during the early 1900s and late 1910s. During his early creative period (1906-1907) the artist produced a number of exquisite Impressionist landscapes and still life paintings developing new innovations in art and following in the tradition of A.K.Savrasov and K.A.Korovin. It is hard to find an artist who is more sophisticated than Larionov amongst the Impressionists of the 1900s. This artist who had a talent for creative initiative and the ability to lead others and fascinate them with his ideas was destined to be the pioneer and leader of the pre avant-garde movement in Russia. Larionov destroys conventional ideas of traditional genres in painting. In the late 1900s-early 1910s he is fascinated with various European art trends reflected in his understanding of "vsechestvo". Finally Larionov arrives at Neo-Primitivism as a version of Expressionism (Soldier Resting, 1911), and creates the "New Primitive" which originates from primeval art froms, from the drawings of children (his "Seasons cycle", 1912). The final Larionov innovation was "Rayonism", which brought him close to non-objective painting, when he depicted rays emanated from various objects ("Rooster", 1913). After 1915 Larionov spent most of his life as an emigre in Paris developing his painting principles but without his previous experimentalism.