We invite you to the opening of the exhibition of works by the legendary artistic family of Alla Horska and Viktor Zaretskyi “SUNSETS” on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence, which will take place at the KhRAM on August 19 at 17:00. The opening will be attended by the artists’ granddaughter Olena Zaretska. The joint exhibition will be held for the first time in Ukraine.

The anniversary of Ukraine’s birthday undoubtedly provokes reflections on its formation. In turn, the Ukrainian art of the twentieth century becomes clearer through immersion in history, and the understanding of the country’s history becomes more thorough thanks to the art and personal stories of the people on whose shoulders we rose and gained freedom.

Alla Horska. Viktor Zaretskyi. Sometimes, in the minds of our contemporaries, their powerful creative work, their warm family relationships, their personal delicate experiences are overshadowed by their uncompromising and fiery social activities. The idealistic and romantic generation of the Sixties is moving away from us with the passage of time, but the power of art is actualizing with renewed vigor their invaluable contribution to both Ukrainian culture and the formation of independent Ukraine.

Beautiful, sensitive, emotional, desperate, imperfect, free, sincere, and open to life, love, and art. With Ukraine in their hearts, they lived and created, fought and died. Generously endowed with talents, with the disposition of ancient gods, they were fierce opponents of idolatry, manipulation, and sharovarism, which were imposed by Soviet propaganda in the perception of figures of Ukrainian history and culture. Therefore, it is our goal and duty to protect their figures from such artificial “bronzing” in our time. The exhibition “Sunshine” reflects the desire to bring back from the past, to bring closer and try to feel the breath of life of this legendary artistic family.

“Dear Lesyk! My dad and I work a lot – we paint. I am painting a girl named Halochka. She lives in a white house near a well. She has round cheeks and brown eyes. Dad draws Oksana and various other women, beautiful and hardworking.” (February 16, 1961, from Alla Horska’s correspondence with her six-year-old son Oleksii Zaretskyi).

“… Daddy, how are you? I am not feeling well. Sometimes, in fits and starts, an unknown force, independent of consciousness, twists and breaks my soul. I am working…” (26 July 1961, from Alla Horska’s correspondence with her father, Oleksandr Horsky).

“Hello, dear family! …I went to a Shevchenko evening. I liked not so much the choir as the old clothes, the Polissya Ukrainian embroidery. It was great, then, when the music started, when everyone started jumping around! Everything was embroidered – I jumped up. I gave a krakovyak in the club there, and they won’t forget it in the village for a long time. I kissed it with all my might – like a tiger. Write, write, Allochka, I miss you.” (March 16, 1961, from Viktor Zaretsky’s correspondence with his family).

“Hello, my dear sunshine! I’m not going to the virgin lands-I don’t want to! I want to be with you, and I don’t want to be a rider. I took you on – hold on and love you. If you take on Polissya Ukraine, love the people.” (April 4, 1961, from the correspondence between Viktor Zaretskyi and his wife Alla Horska).

“If we were to imagine in detail the story of her life, it would be an instructive story about how the artist Alla Horska discovered her Ukraine, how she searched for its altar, and how she gradually learned to see the main thing in the invisible, digging to the sources, and in the depths of buried roots…” (Yevhen Sverstiuk, literary critic, philosopher, Sixties activist).

“The world of Viktor Zaretskyi’s art often resembles a labyrinth with complex stylistic flows, mysterious metaphors, and philosophical meditations. But above all, it is a dimension of artistic existence as a synonym for the immortality of the Ukrainian nation, the home of the human soul.” (Lesia Smyrna, art critic).

Project curators: Olena Zaretska, granddaughter of the artists, artist, designer; Olena Mykhailovska, art historian, researcher at the KhRAM.

The exhibition features works from the collections of Olena Zaretska, Oleksandr Butsan, the family of Iryna Belinska and Mykola Zhuchenko, the family of Ruslana Havryliuk and Sviatoslav Trubenko, Andrii Koshman, and Oleksii Kharko.