Biography
Halyna Serhiivna Hryhorieva (1933, Kyiv – 2026, Kyiv) was a Ukrainian painter, graphic artist, and educator. She was the granddaughter of archaeologist Hnat Stetskyi, daughter of artist Liubov Hryhorieva-Steletska and educator/artist Serhiy Hryhoriev, sister of artist Maiya Hryhorieva (the second wife of painter and muralist Viktor Zaretskyi), and mother of artist Ivan Hryhoriev.
1952 –1 959 – Studied at the Kyiv State Art Institute under Serhiy Hryhoriev, Vasyl Kasiyan, Ilarion Pleshchynskyi, Mykhailo Ivanov, and Serhiy Yerzhykovskyi. Thanks to Pleshchynskyi, she became acquainted with early 20th-century art and the ideas of the 1910s–1930s avant-garde.
1959 – present – Participated in republican exhibitions (since 1959), all-Union exhibitions (since 1961), and international exhibitions (since 1992). In the 1970s, her works often failed to pass exhibition selection boards due to a “lack of ideological commitment” (bezideinist). Her solo exhibitions in Kyiv (1992–2008) were held at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the exhibition halls of the NUAU, and Mystetskyi Arsenal.
1965 – Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
Worked at the Veselka Children’s Literature Publishing House (Kyiv) and the Taras Shevchenko Republican Art School.
2009 – The album-catalog of her work, The Edge of Painting, was published by Dukh i Litera.
Lived and worked in Kyiv.
In the early 1960s, a group of young artists emerged who rejected the doctrine of Socialist Realism: Halyna Hryhorieva, Zoya Lerman, Yakym Levych, Anatoliy Lymariev, Ihor Hryhoriev, Heorhiy Yakutovych, Mykhailo Vainshtein, Vladyslav Mamsikov, Yuriy Lutskevych, Oleksandr Ahafonov, Liudmyla Zahorna, and Yuriy Malyshevskyi. In the 1970s, their works were almost entirely barred from public exhibitions; paradoxically, the artists held private viewings in the studio of Halyna’s father, Socialist Realism titan Serhiy Hryhoriev. Following an informant’s report, a scandal erupted within the NUAU, drawing KGB scrutiny. Halyna Hryhorieva cited the “Exhibition of Nine” (Kyiv, 1985) as the turning point for her creative freedom. Soviet art critics and journalists condemned the exposition as “characterless,” whereas audiences warmly embraced these talented and progressive artists.
Halyna Hryhorieva worked in easel painting and book graphics, consistently developing a signature style while avoiding ideological commissions and the pressure of Socialist Realism. She developed her own painting technique centered on creating a personalized palette of colors and nuances. She frequently turned to biblical and mythological themes.
Researcher Tetiana Asadcheva writes:
“The artist believed that art is always contemporary because it is born of the era in which we live while simultaneously carrying the memory of past epochs and a premonition of what is to come. Her ‘quiet painting’ united the memory of past eras with a premonition of the future, leaving behind a legacy that will forever live on in museums, collections, and the hearts of her students.”
