Borachok, Severyn

Borachok, Severyn [Борачок, Северин; Boračok], b 22 June 1898 in Sorotsko, Terebovlia county, Galicia, d 8 July 1975 in Richmond, Virginia, USA. Painter, postimpressionist. Borachok studied at the Cracow Academy of Arts in 1921–4 with Józef Pankiewicz and at its branch in Paris from 1925 on. He was a member of a group of 10 artists known as the Comité Parisien. A jury that included Raoul Dugy and Paul Bonnard awarded the first prize in an academy competition to Borachok. In 1937 Borachok moved to Munich and in 1962 to the United States of America. Exhibits of his paintings were held in Lviv, Warsaw, Cracow, Paris, Geneva, Munich, New York, and elsewhere. In his work Borachok used various techniques and materials. His latest works consisted of mosaics made of Venetian glass. Borachok’s creative imagination expressed itself through color and light, with much attention given to detail. His main works were compositions with female figures, landscapes, still lifes, and, at the end of his life, icons. An iconostasis by him is installed in the Ukrainian chapel in Mackwiller, France.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]