Severyn, Ivan [Северин, Іван], b 5 October 1881 in Ostapivka, Myrhorod county, Poltava gubernia, d 20 February 1964 in Kyiv. Landscape art painter. He studied under Opanas Slastion at the Myrhorod Handicrafts School and the Kharkiv City School of Drawing and Painting (1903–5) and then at the Cracow Academy of Arts (1905–7) and in Rome (1907) and Paris (1908, 1912–13). He painted many landscapes while he was a member of a geological expedition to Tian Shan and Tibet (1915–17). After living in Kirgizia for several years, he returned to Ukraine and taught at an art tekhnikum (1925–7) and the Kharkiv Art Institute (1927–33). A member of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine, in the mid-1930s he was arrested and sent to a GULAG labor camp. His early works, such as Zakopane (1907), Environs of Rome (1907), Kuban Cossack (1909), and the cycle ‘Hutsul Region’ (1905–11), are impressionist in style. The few works he produced during the Soviet period include the cycle ‘Dnipro Hydroelectric Station’ (1930–2).

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