Union of Contemporary Artists of Ukraine (Об’єднання сучасних митців України, or ОСМУ; Obiednannia suchasnykh myttsiv Ukrainy, or OSMU). An association of Soviet Ukrainian artists, established in Kharkiv in 1927. Its members—Lev Kramarenko, Viktor Palmov, Anatol Petrytsky, Ilarion Pleshchynsky, Yurii Sadylenko, Mikhail Sharonov, Dmitrii Shavykin, Illia Shtilman, Andrii Taran, I. Zhdanko, and others—followed the newer schools of European modernist art, particularly those in France and the postfuturists (see Futurism). OSMU was disbanded in 1932 under pressure from the Stalinist regime.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]