IEU'S FEATURED TOPIC IN UKRAINIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE

ARCHIPENKO ALEXANDER, b 30 May 1887 in Kyiv, d 25 February 1964 in New York. Modernist sculptor, painter, and pedagogue. He studied art at the Kyiv Art School in 1902-5, in Moscow in 1906-8, and then briefly at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His first one-man show took place in 1906 in Ukraine. He moved to Paris in 1909. In 1910 he exhibited his works with a group of Cubists at the Salon des Artistes Independants. In 1912 he joined a new artistic group--La Section d'Or, which numbered among its members Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Marcel Duchamp--and participated in the group's exhibitions. Arguably, the most innovative sculptor of his generation, Archipenko opened his own school of sculpture in Paris in 1912. At his individual exhibition in 1912, he displayed Medrano I, the first modern sculpture made of various polychromed materials (wood, glass, and metal fiber). At this time he also created the first sculpto-peintures (carved and painted plaster reliefs) and the first modern sculpture composed of concave forms contrasted with convex ones and incorporating elements of color. In 1920 Archipenko's works were given a separate pavilion at the Venice Biennale...

HRYSHCHENKO, OLEKSA, b 2 April 1883 in Krolevets, Chernihiv gubernia, d 28 January 1977 in Vence, France. Modernist painter, art scholar, and author. While specializing in biology at Kyiv University and Moscow University, he studied painting with Serhii Svitoslavsky in Kyiv and K. Yuon in Moscow. During a brief stay in Paris in 1911 he met Alexander Archipenko and Le Fauconnier and became interested in cubism. From 1913 to 1914 he studied in Italy and wrote several studies of Italian primitive artists and the relation between the icon and Western art. During the Revolution of 1917, Hryshchenko became professor of the State Art Studios in Moscow and was offered the directorship of the Tretiakov Gallery, but he escaped from Russia via Crimea to Turkey. From 1919 to 1921 he lived in Istanbul, where he painted hundreds of watercolors. In 1921 he moved to France and, later that year, twelve of his Istanbul paintings were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris together with the works of Fernand Leger. Hryshchenko exhibited his works in the leading galleries of Paris. He became known in the United States in 1923, when the Barnes Foundation acquired several of his paintings...

ANDRIIENKO-NECHYTAILO, MYKHAILO (known in France as Michel Andreenko), b 29 December 1894 in Odesa, d 12 November 1982 in Paris. Modernist painter and stage designer. In 1912-17 Andriienko-Nechytailo studied at the art school of the Society for the Promotion of the Arts in Saint Petersburg. In 1914-16 he exhibited the composition Black Dome and his first cubist works in Saint Petersburg. In 1914 he participated in an international graphics exhibition in Leipzig. In 1917-24 he devoted most of his time to designing stage sets for various theaters--in Saint Petersburg, Odesa, Prague, Paris, and for the Royal Opera in Bucharest. In Paris, where he lived from 1923, he also worked on sets for the films Casanova and Sheherazade and continued to paint in the cubist-constructivist style. In the 1930s Andriienko-Nechytailo produced a series of surrealist paintings. He switched to neorealism in the 1940s and painted a number of portraits as well as a series the cityscapes Disappearing Paris. From 1958 he returned to constructivism and abstraction. Andriienko-Nechytailo's work is characterized by a precision of composition that harmonizes subtly with color...

LEVYTSKA, SOFIIA, b 9 March 1874 in Vykhylivka, Proskuriv county, Podilia gubernia, d 20 September 1937 in Paris. Painter, woodcut artist, and translator. She studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1905) and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Independants and Salon d'Automne, of which she became a member in 1910. She was close to the cubists, and her painting White Rhinoceros in the Garden of Eden (1911) attracted the attention of Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1912 she exhibited with the Section d'Or together with Alexander Archipenko and held her first individual exhibition in the Galerie Weil. Her translation into French of Nikolai Gogol's Evenings on a Farm near Dykanka, illustrated with her own woodcuts, was published in 1921. Her artistic salon in Paris attracted the elite of French artists and writers. Her large-scale compositions with genre scenes are painted in a postimpressionist style typical of the L'Ecole de Paris. Her graphic work was exhibited many times in France and at Ukrainian group exhibitions in Paris, Lviv, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, and Rome. A posthumous exhibition of her works was held in Paris in 1938...

EKSTER, ALEXANDRA (Exter), b 6 January 1882 in Bialystok, Hrodna gubernia, d 17 March 1949 in Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris, France. Avant-garde painter and theatrical set designer and costume designer working within the currents of cubism, cubo-futurism, suprematism, and constructivism. From 1908 to 1924 Ekster intermittently lived in Kyiv, Saint Petersburg, Odesa, Paris, Rome, and Moscow. In Paris, she was a personal friend of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Gertrude Stein. In 1914, she participated in the Salon des Independants exhibitions together with Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Archipenko, Vadym Meller, Sonia Delaunay-Terk and other artists. In the same year she participated with the Archipenko, Koulbine and Rozanova in the International Futurist Exhibition in Rome. In 1924 Ekster emigrated to France and settled in Paris, where she initially became a professor at the Academie Moderne. From 1926 to 1930 she was a professor at Fernand Leger's Academie d'Art Contemporain. She continued to exhibit her works in Paris and New York and maintained particularly close relations with artists from Ukraine...

KHMELIUK, VASYL (Khmeluk, Vassyl), b 3 July 1903 in Berezivka, Zhmerynka county, Podilia gubernia, d 2 November 1986 in Paris. Postimpressionist painter and avant-garde poet. During Ukraine’s struggle for independence (1917–20) Khmeliuk served in the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. Interned in a Polish internment camp in 1920, he later studied art at the Cracow Academy of Arts (1921-23), Charles University in Prague (1926-27), and at the Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts in Prague. In Prague he also self-published three collections of futurist-dadaist Ukrainian-language poems, but discouraged by negative criticism, he abandoned his attempts to write poetry. In 1928 he settled in Paris, where his paintings attracted the attention of prominent collectors and appeared at well-known galleries. His work met with praise by such established Parisian artists as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. In the 1930s Khmeliuk's paintings were exhibited also in England, Italy, and Switzerland (where the artist lived in 1939-43). He returned to Paris in 1943 and became associated with the Durand-Ruel Gallery, which organized exhibitions for him in Paris, New York, and other cities...