KhRMA continues the project “Cheers!” dedicated to the artists who will be celebrating their anniversaries in 2024.
“In her works, Sofia Karaffa-Korbut shows all of herself, unexpected spiritual possibilities, the richest knowledge of life, human nature, her people, and the professional secrets of her art. She is a masterful artist with a carving tool, a graphic pen. She has her own artistic handwriting that cannot be compared with anyone else. The way she draws a graphic line is dynamic, rather sharp, and expressive. The images created by the artist stood next to literary masterpieces, sounded in unison with them, like a kind of music of lines and spots, rhythms of ornamental patterns.” Khrystyna Sanotska, art historian.
Her friends called her “Countess” among themselves. And for good reason, because her father, Belarusian Petro Karaffa-Korbut, belonged to an ancient family. His distant ancestor from the family of Venetian princes in the fourteenth century joined the service of the Polish king Władysław Jagiełła, and his descendants settled in Belarus. Sofia’s parents got married and lived for some time in Paris, where they worked at a local weaving factory. It is not known why Maria Karaffa-Korbut returned to Ukraine without her husband, who emigrated to America. Later, the Soviet government repressed his family and nationalized their estates. In the late 1960s, the father found his daughter Sofia through the Red Cross Society. Since then, they corresponded, but they were never to meet.
Sofia Roksoliana Romana (as the girl was named) was born in Lviv. Her godfather was her mother’s famous countryman, Ukrainian publisher Ivan Tyktor, and her godmother was Ivan Franko’s associate Stefania Mazur. Sofia Karaffa-Korbut’s mother’s cousin was Ilarion Sventsitsky, director of the National Museum in Lviv.
Between 1961 and 2001, 60 books with illustrations by Sofia Karaffa-Korbut were published, with a total circulation of almost 7 million copies. The artist illustrated works by the classics of Ukrainian literature: Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, L. Ukrainka, M. Starytskyi, H. Hotkevych, L. Hlibov, I. Vyshenskyi, O. Vyshnia, and others. Under the influence of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and thanks to her studies with such masters of the Lviv Academy of Arts as Ivan Hutorov, Witold Manastyrsky, and Roman Selsky, she became a skilled graphic artist.
“Shevchenko’s poetic images in Sofia Karaffa-Korbut’s interpretation have gained a new life. The artist made the figurative word visible, gave it flesh and blood, achieving a synthesis of the two arts, which has been regarded as a high cultural achievement for centuries. The illustrated Kobzar, published in 1967, was a testament to the artist’s high creative growth and one of the most significant artistic events of that time. In 2011, the Lviv publishing house Kameniar published a new edition of Kobzar with her illustrations. Dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, the book became a significant event of the year.” Bohdan Horyn, dissident, Ukrainian political and public figure, journalist, art critic, political scientist.
The peak of Sofia Karaffa-Korbut’s oeuvre is considered to be the illustrations for Lesia Ukrainka’s drama-extravaganza The Forest Song. She worked on them during the last years of her life. For these works, admirers of the artist’s extraordinary talent nominated her for the Shevchenko Prize. But it did not happen. The then sick Sofia Petrivna responded to this as follows: “I have long since reassessed those vain values and know that the main thing in life is only faith, work, honor, and a good memory of you, who also lives for a short time…”
The works presented at the mini-exhibition are characterized by monumentalism, decorativeness, dynamism and laconicism. The artist demonstrates a masterful mastery of the incisor. Under her skillful hand, the lines sometimes explode with unbridled expression, and sometimes are marked with softness and tragedy. The artist does not just reproduce images, but immerses the viewer in the appropriate atmosphere of the events of the time. Sofia Karrafa-Korbut made a powerful contribution to the development of Ukrainian graphic art of the twentieth century, enriching it with new means of expression and techniques, which, unfortunately, have not been adequately studied and evaluated.
Olena Skoruk, a researcher at the KhRMA
REFERENCES:
– Sofia Petrivna Karaffa-Korbut (23.08.1924, Lviv – 29.11.1996, Lviv region) was a graphic artist, ceramist, and painter. She graduated from the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (1953). Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (since 1958). She collaborated with the publishing houses Kameniar (Lviv), Veselka (Kyiv), and Dnipro (Kyiv). Participant of regional, all-Ukrainian (since 1954), international (since 1963) art exhibitions. Personal exhibitions – in Lviv (1964, 1970). She created ceramic figurines, thematic paintings on porcelain plates, paintings, stained glass projects, and bookplates. Since the 1960s, she has been engaged mainly in easel and book graphics (the main techniques are gouache, linocut, watercolor, ink).
– Maksym Ievlevych Zalizniak (ca. 1740 – after 1769) was the leader of the Haidamak uprising (1768-1769) known as the Koliivshchyna, a Cossack ataman.
– Ivan Pidkova (Ivan Serpiaga, Karapet Serpega, Ivan Voda (Water), Ioan the Armenian; 1533, Bratslavshchyna or Moldavian principality – June 16, 1578, Lviv) – Cossack ataman, Moldavian ruler (1577-1578).
– The Roma (Gypsies) in Ukraine are an ethnic minority that has been living on the territory of Ukraine since the 15th century. The total number of the diaspora (according to the 2001 census) was 47,587 people, most of whom lived in Zakarpattia (14004 people), Donetsk (4106 people), Dnipro (4067 people) and Odesa (4035 people) regions.
