The exhibition of works by German artists of Ukraine was made possible by the unique 18-year project “Meeting of Generations” (2006-2024) – plein air seminars and expeditions of German artists of Ukraine with the financial support of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Regional Development of Germany through the Charitable Foundation “Development Society”, Odesa.
This project brought together different generations of artists from many parts of our country and gave young amateurs and masters the opportunity to touch the origins of ancient cultures that lived on the territory of modern Ukraine. The ideological inspirer and leader of the project is Angelina Schardt, President of the Association of Germans in Ukraine, member of the Presidium of the Council of Germans in Ukraine.
This is not the first time that an exhibition of works by ethnic Germans has been held in Khmelnytskyi. In December 2014-January 2015, the Khmelnytskyi Regional Museum of Art exhibited 76 works by representatives of creative communities of German communities in Ukraine. Over the years of the project, exhibitions of works by Ukrainian-German artists have also been successfully held in Mykolaiv, Kherson, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Melitopol, Dnipro, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Kharkiv, Bila Tserkva, Kyiv, Mukachevo, Chynadiyevo, Lviv, Ternopil, Vysokopillia, Druskininkai (Lithuania), and Berlin (at the Embassy of Ukraine in Germany).
The exhibition presents the works of Harry Wilhelm Ruff from Donetsk region, who is considered one of the best artists of German descent in Ukraine. The cycle of paintings “Churches of Ukraine”, which he has been working on since 2014 with the support of the Council of Germans of Ukraine and St. Paul’s Lutheran Cathedral, is dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Ruff is an Honored Artist of Ukraine, holder of the Order of Merit of the Third Degree. In August 2005, he received the honorary award “For Merit to the City”, and in March 2006, the artist was awarded the title of “Honorary Citizen of the City of Makiivka”. In 2015, in Brussels (Belgium), Harry Ruff was admitted to the International Union of Artists for Peace and was awarded the European Parliament’s Golden Brush of Peace. In the nearest future, Harry Ruff plans to prepare a work “For Peace” dedicated to the military operations in the East of Ukraine.
The works of the writer and artist, member of the Writers’ Union of Ukraine from Bila Tserkva Halyna Viktorivna Nevinchana-Martyn – a series of paintings “Mennonites of Zaporizhzhia” and “August 41. Deportation of Germans”. Her novel Grain and Millstones (2010) shows the horrors of Stalin’s camps and the defencelessness of people before the repressive system.
The works of Viktor Semernev (Honoured Artist of Ukraine, Mykolaiv), Tetiana Yushko (Yevpatoria), Oksana Metzger (Mukachevo), Natalia Rybar (Mukachevo), Stanislav Wagner (Poltava) and other artists of the long-term project “Meeting of Generations” demonstrate the diversity of artistic issues and stylistic diversity of the exhibitors.
The German community is represented by works by amateur artist Petro Alekseiev.
The exhibition and the literature presented allow you to get acquainted with the historical and contemporary creative work of German artists in Ukraine, art and culture in Germany in general, and also raise the image policy of the German minority in Ukraine and the self-identification of the people.
Organizers of the exhibition:
NGO Mykolaiv Regional Centre of German Culture
NGO Society of Germans of Khmelnytskyi Region – Wiedergeburt