Description of the edition
The Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum (KhRAM), one of the youngest museums in Ukraine, was founded in 1986. The doors of its six exhibition halls opened to visitors 6 years later. This is how long it took to reconstruct the old building, which was built in 1903 for the Proskuriv branch of the South Russian Industrial Bank.
Since the institution was created in the absence of an initial collection, the museum staff faced the question of what kind of museum should it be? In the early 1990s, it was realized that the institution could only become an original institution by collecting, researching, and exhibiting contemporary Ukrainian art: painting, graphics, sculpture, new art forms, and decorative and applied art by Ukrainian artists of the second half of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The collection is rich in works by prominent contemporary artists, including Taras Shevchenko National Prize winners: Ivan Honchar, Andrii Antoniuk, Feodosii Humeniuk, Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhnyi, Opanas Zalyvakha, Ivan Marchuk, Liubomyr Medvid, Ivan Ostafiichuk, Viktor Hontariv, Mykola Malyshko, Andrii Bokotei (52 laureates in total). The pearl of the museum’s collection of decorative and applied arts is 24 paintings by the 1966 prize winner, People’s Artist Mariia Prymachenko (Pryimachenko).
The non-figurative direction is represented by paintings by Tiberii and Ilona Silvashi, Marko Heiko, Oleksandr Zhyvotkov, Mykola Kryvenko, Petro Lebedynets, Anatoliy Kryvolap, Vasyl Bazhay, Svitlana Yusim, Volodymyr Strelnikov, Volodymyr Tsyupko, and others.
The Lviv school of art is well represented (Roman and Marhit Selskyi, Carlo Zvirynskyi, Roman Zhuk, Mykhailo Lishchyner, Oleh Minko, Zynovii Flinta, Petro Markovych, Borys and Nina Buriak, and others); picturesque Zakarpattia – Fedir Manailo, Yosyp Bokshai, Iryna Beklemisheva, Andrii Kotska, Havrylo Hliuk, Edita and Mykola Medvetskyi, and others; Odesa nonconformism – Viktor Maryniuk, Liudmyla Yastreb, Valerii Basanets, Volodymyr Kabachenko, Yevhen Rakhmanin, and others. Khmelnytskyi region is represented in the collection of KhRAM: Mykhailo Andriichuk, Liudmyla, Mykola, Bohdan and Oksana Mazur, Oleksandr Humenchuk, Mykhailo Nikolaiev, Oleksandr Antoniuk and others.
In addition to paintings, the collection contains a number of three-dimensional plastic works, primarily professional ceramics: compositions by Roman Petruk, Olha Bezpalkiv, Uliana Yaroshevych, Yaroslava and Yaroslav Motyka, Inna Tumanova-Yershova, Hanna Lysyk, Volodymyr Khyzhynskyi, Nelli Isupova, and others.
In addition, the collection contains works by artists of the national school of painting of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Volodymyr Orlovskyi, Oleksandr Murashko, Anna Kriuher-Prakhova, Serhii Vasylkivskyi, Serhii Svitoslavskyi, Mykhailo Kozyk, Andronyk Lazarchuk, Mykhailo Burachek, as well as a large number of exhibits from the Soviet era (in particular, first-class works by Tetiana Yablonska, Olha Otroshchenko, Serhii Shyshko, Mykola Hlushchenko, Vladyslav Mamsikov, Oleksii Shovkunenko, Vira Barynova-Kuleba, and Viktor Ryzhykh). A separate part of the collection is the memorial fund of Heorhii Vereiskyi (1886-1962), which was accepted for storage in 1989 from the Khmelnytskyi Regional Museum of Local Lore. The collection also contains hundreds of drawings made in pencil, ink, watercolor, pastel, as well as a large number of printed graphics by Ukrainian artists (including Oksana Pavlenko, Leopold Levytskyi, Olena, Heorhii, and Serhii Yakutovych, Oleksandr Aksinin, Roman Romanyshyn, Ihor Podolchak, Pavlo Makov, Felix Kider, Tetiana and Volodymyr Bakhtov, Oksana Stratiichuk, and others).
Recent acquisitions include works by internationally recognized artists: Alla Horska, Oleksandr Dubovyk, Oleksandr Roitburd, Viktor Pokydanets, Borys Yeghiazarian and others. Today, the collection includes almost 7 thousand works, and it continues to be actively replenished.
