The exhibition is dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Hryhoriy Skovoroda, the 135th anniversary of Ivan Kavaleridze, and the 100th anniversary of the first monument to Hryhoriy Skovoroda in Ukraine in Lokhvytsia, created by Ivan Kavaleridze.

The idea: Oleksandr Yunin (Director of the Ivan Kavaleridze Museum and Workshop, Kyiv); curated by: Oleksandra Savenok (acting deputy director of the I.P. Kavaleridze Museum-Workshop, Kyiv); exhibition at the KhRAM: researchers of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum.

Today, the work of Ivan Petrovich Kavaleridze is revealed as an outstanding page of not only national but also world art. The most important Ukrainian sculptor of the twentieth century, he stood at the origins of the national sculpture school, thanks to his works he gave it a broad European dimension. A master of heroic and epic plan, who always gravitated to images of high generalization, emotional and romantic sound, he uniquely combined in his art the multidirectional traditions of national realism and European modernism, in the 1920s he became the author of a truly innovative sculpture – the project of the monument to Hryhorii Skovoroda in Lokhvytsia, which in its imagery, artistic language and means of expression belongs to the most significant phenomena of world art.

To some extent, it is symbolic that the image of the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda became the end of Ivan Kavaleridze’s life and work. Having started working on him back in the 1920s, the artist, as already mentioned, constantly referred to him, embodying him not only in sculpture but also in cinema and drama. Since the early 1970s, the master has been working on his last monumental work, the monument to H. Skovoroda in Kyiv. His Skovoroda is a man of high dignity, personal independence and spiritual strength, a man of vast life experience, who, however, does not depress or disappoint, but rather gives strength and confidence.

The exhibition is a kind of popularization of the works of Ivan Kavaleridze and Grigory Skovoroda by freely reflecting one of the most significant figures in Kavaleridze’s work – Ukrainian philosopher Grigory Skovoroda in paintings, sculptures and art installations by contemporary artists from Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Italy, Australia, Israel, Lithuania, Slovenia and Nepal, as well as sculptural compositions by the genius Ivan Kavaleridze himself. 

 Prior to the events of February 24, 2022, part of the collection was located at the first location of the mobile exhibition, the Hryhorii Halahan Chernihiv Regional Art Museum. During the bombing of the city by the Russian invaders, the collection was kept by museum workers until, thanks to the territorial defense forces of Andriivskyi Uzviz, the collection was personally taken out by the director of the I.P. Kavaleridze Museum-Workshop Oleksandr Yunin and acting deputy director Oleksandra Savenok.

This rescued exhibition is now on display in the halls of the Khmelnytsky Regional Art Museum:
– works of graphics and painting by Ukrainian, Georgian, Polish, Israeli, and Lithuanian artists;
– sculptures made of tinted ceramics by a Crimean Tatar artist;
– a sculptural work of tinted plaster – a bust of H. Skovoroda.

The exhibition will be open at the KhRAM for a month.