Stories & Legends

Elena Guro was born in a family of French aristocrats. Her family came from among the Huguenots, French Protestants. Her paternal grandfather, Marquis de Mericourt, emigrated from France to Russia after the Reign of Terror of 1793.

Elena Guro was married to another famous representative of the Russian avant-garde, the artist and musician Mikhail Matiushin. They met in an art workshop, where Guro learned the basics of painting.

Guro developed new theories of color in painting. The interest in exploring the rules of color was central to her work. Guro drew inspiration from Art Nouveau and Scandinavian folk art.

Guro was not only an artist, but also a poetess. Her poetry was born from painting, and painting embodied poetry. Guro's work was the synthesis of words and drawings. While working on the word, she immediately made sketches. When she made a drawing or watercolor, she wrote poetry or prose on the edge.

All her books are dedicated to the memory of her deceased son, although she never had children. For Elena Guro the personification of the image of this unborn son, the image that she created in her imagination, was the artist Boris Ender, a student of Matiushin. This is what Boris Ender wrote: “I went to Guro to be born as a poet. It was as if it was not I who came to her, but she appeared to me with good news like an archangel.”

Critics did not take Guro's poetry very favorably. Deciding that these deep touches of the subtlest sensual sphere were unlikely to be able to reach a person ignorant of suffering, Guro distributed her works in prisons and hospitals. Thus, she made a breakthrough of her poetry into life.

The modest wooden house in which Guro lived with Matiushin in St. Petersburg, was reconstructed and is now the “Museum of Avant-garde”.