2021 has been declared the Year of Significant Events at the museum. So, we continue to travel back in time to recall significant dates in the history of Ukraine and get to know the collection of the KhRAM in more detail.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhnyi, an artist whose work, unfortunately, remains little known to the public. Meanwhile, he went down in the history of Ukrainian art as the author of paintings, monumental murals, posters, book graphics, stained-glass windows, tapestries, sculptures, etc. Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR and winner of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize in 1995 (posthumously).
It is possible to come closer to unraveling his talent only through an in-depth study of his life and work, which, in part, resembles a suspenseful movie. An orphaned childhood, the Holodomor of 1933, two wounds during World War II, and six months in a camp on false charges not only did not break Zadorozhnyi, but also hardened his character and crystallized his talent.
After receiving his education at the Kyiv State Institute in the workshops of Anatol Petrytskyi and Kostiantyn Yeleva (who miraculously survived the Stalinist repressions, as the former was an outrageous avant-garde artist and the latter was a student of Mykhailo Boichuk), he continued his postgraduate studies with the famous painter Serhii Hryhoriev, who was then the rector, an influential and respected person in the highest echelons of power. It is not surprising that Zadorozhnyi went through a difficult transformation from an exemplary easel and poster artist to an artist who went far beyond socialist realism and made an incredible breakthrough in his own worldview. He thought in the national form and remembered his origins. To this day, his work remains outside the time frame. Because the artist’s works closely intertwine the fates of the Great Ukrainians who worked in different periods – Roksolana, Nestor the Chronicler, Yurii Kondratiuk, and others.
Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhny considered people to be the greatest treasure, so it is quite appropriate that the exhibition, which we invite you to see on October 28 at 16.00, is dedicated to them.
