Severa, Ivan

Severa, Ivan [Севера, Іван], b 21 May 1891 in Novosilky, Yavoriv county, Galicia, d 20 December 1971 in Lviv. Sculptor and educator. He studied at the woodcarving school in Yavoriv (1904–7), the Lviv Handicrafts School (1910–14), and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts (1915–17), the Prague Academy of Arts (1919–20), and the Rome Academy of Arts (1921–4). In 1926 he emigrated from Prague to Soviet Ukraine, where he lectured at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1926–9) and the Kharkiv Art Institute (1929–33). To escape the Stalinist terror in Ukraine he moved to Frunze, Kirgizia. In 1935 he settled in Moscow, and in 1941 he returned to Lviv. From 1945 he taught at the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Art. In his early sculptures, such as Wave (1921) and Self-Portrait (1925), modernist influences are evident. Later he created realist busts of Taras Shevchenko (1927), Vladimir Lenin (1929), Ivan Franko (1947), and Vasyl Stefanyk (1949); sculptures of Ivan Gonta and Lesia Ukrainka; and the composition Rebellious Egypt. Dmytro Krvavych’s book about Severa was published in Kyiv in 1958.

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