Sakhnovska, Olena

Sakhnovska, Olena [Сахновська, Олена; Saxnovs'ka], b 15 May 1902 in Kyiv, d 28 March 1958 in Moscow. Graphic artist. She studied at Sofiia Nalepinska’s xylography studio (1921–4) and under Ilarion Pleshchynsky at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1927–9). In 1925 she joined the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine. To escape the Stalinist terror in Ukraine she moved to Moscow in 1934. Sakhnovska specialized in printmaking and book illustrations and created mostly xylographs until 1936, after which she turned to lithographs. The influence of Nalepinska is evident in her early woodcuts, such as Listening to the Radio (1927) and Return from the Front (1927). She produced several series, such as ‘Woman in the Revolution’ (1930–2), ‘Taras Shevchenko’ (1934), and ‘Donbas’ (1934–5). Her best-known lithographs are the cycles ‘Gorky’s Places in Ukraine’ (1939–41), ‘Kyiv in 1944’ (1944), and ‘Old Lviv’ (1946). In her book illustrations she developed her own style based on 16th- to 18th-century Ukrainian traditions. She illustrated editions of Nikolai Gogol’s works (1928–9), Lesia Ukrainka’s Lisova pisnia (The Forest Song, 1930), and works by Soviet Ukrainian writers such as Petro Panch, Oleksander Kopylenko, and Ivan Mykytenko. She also designed woodcuts and etched bookplates. A catalog of a retrospective exhibition of her works was published in Kyiv in 1963.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]