He was trained in the Moscow Conservatory majoring in violin from 1877 to 1881, and then worked as a violinist of the Court Orchestra. He attended Drawing School of the Society for Encouragement of Arts from 1894 to 1905 and then Ya. F. Tsionglinsky school studio. 

Mikhail Matyushin, as well as some other artists of that epoch went from modernism towards avant-garde. 

 

In 1908 - 1910 Mikhail Matyushin and his wife Elena Gourand were members of the developing circle of the Russian cubofuturists, the so-called “budetlyane” (namely David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov, and others). They got together at the Matyushins’ in Pesochnaya Street in St. Petersburg (nowadays the Petersburg Avant-garde Museum in Professor Popov Street, the Petrograd side). This is where the Zhuravl publishing house was founded and first book of verses by cubofuturists The Cage of Judges was published in 1910. Mikhail Matyushin published 20 futuristic books in this publishing house until 1917.

 

He was buried in Martyshkino of the Lomonosov town.