We are pleased to present you unique paintings by the master of the late 1950s and 1990s from the collection of the Ukrainian Art Exhibitions Directorate. All of them are dedicated to Ukraine: its thousand-year history, ancient times, the greatness of Kyivan Rus, the unsurpassed beauty and diversity of our nature, and its generous gifts.
At the exhibition, we contemplate “petrified time,” as one of Hryhorii Synytsia’s iconic works on historical themes is called. We see ancient churches, temples, majestic architectural structures of different historical eras. The artist reconstructs history, filling it with life, populating it with people who lived in ancient times. The images of relict Kyiv hills and steeps, famous churches and temples – everything breathes history and antiquity.
Hryhorii Synytsia dedicated a huge number of his landscapes and still lifes to the unique beauty of Ukrainian nature, which inspired artists of different eras. In his brightly colored, pastel still lifes, the energy of the paint seems to have “absorbed” all the generosity of his native land.
Hryhorii Synytsia (1908–1996) was an outstanding Ukrainian artist of the 20th century, a Sixties artist, a monumentalist, a painter, a devoted follower of the ideas of the revival of national monumental art of Mykhailo Boichuk and his school.
Recognition came to the artist only in the years of Independence. During the Soviet regime, his creative searches and experiments were hidden under the label of “Boichukism,” “formalism,” and “nationalism.” In 1992, the artist was awarded the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine for his achievements in the field of the Ukrainian coloristic school of monumental painting and the cycle of works “Ukraine, My Life”. Soon, the Congress of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine accepted him into its ranks.
Hryhorii Synytsia was born on January 17, 1908 in Odesa. He received his art education at the Kirovohrad Art and Industrial School. In 1930, he entered the Kyiv Art Institute, where he studied at the monumental painting studio of Mykola Rokytskyi, one of Mykhailo Boichuk’s most talented students and associates. It is known that Mykhailo Boichuk professed the idea of creativity on a national basis, accumulating the achievements of world art, in particular the monumental art of the ancient East and the early Italian Renaissance (Giotto’s school), as well as the traditions of mural painting from the times of Kyivan Rus.
The artist sought to plunge into the depths of the national worldview, to feel and understand the genetics of creating form, color, and motifs. In order to achieve this lofty goal, since the 1960s, he has been collaborating with prominent folk artists, true Ukrainian nuggets, including Mariia Prymachenko, Hanna Sobachko-Shostak, Hanna Veres, Hanna Vasylashchuk, and Oleksandr Sayenko.
Hryhorii Synytsia’s discoveries and experiments were vividly embodied in his monumental works. The Prometheus mosaic in Donetsk, created by the artist together with Alla Horska, Viktor Zaretskyi, Halyna Zubchenko, and Hennadii Marchenko, as well as the mosaics on the walls of the institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine “Victory”, “Blacksmiths of the Modern Age”, “Triumph of Cybernetics”, and “Movement” on the facade of the Palace of Sports of the Academy of Sciences, became a significant phenomenon of Ukrainian monumental art.
Since 1971, the artist has lived and worked in Kryvyi Rih, creating unique paintings (in particular, abstractions), exquisite watercolors, experimenting with the author’s technique of “floromosaic” using materials of mainly plant origin. However, both in Kyiv and Kryvyi Rih, his artistic achievements were leveled and silenced for many years, and his works were not allowed to be exhibited.
Today, a memorial museum has been created in the house in Kryvyi Rih where Hryhorii Synytsia lived and worked. And the artist donated the lion’s share of his works to the Ukrainian Art Exhibitions Directorate.
In 2025, the Ukrainian Art Exhibitions Directorate celebrates its 90th anniversary. This is a unique cultural and artistic institution whose important vector of activity is to popularize the best achievements of Ukrainian fine art in Ukraine and abroad. The Directorate specializes in organizing large-scale cultural and artistic projects and exhibitions throughout Ukraine.
Since February 24, 2022, the Directorate, along with other museum institutions throughout Ukraine, has actively joined the cultural front. The UAED carries out cultural and artistic events in those regions where it is possible, taking into account the new realities. In 2022-2024, despite the difficulties of wartime, the Directorate will organize more than 20 cultural and artistic events annually.