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Sketch for a Mural on the Territory of the Lviv State Leather Enterprise (until 1976, the Svitanok Leather Company)

Vasyl Poliovyi

  • Sketch for a Mural on the Territory of the Lviv State Leather Enterprise (until 1976, the Svitanok Leather Company) 2
  • Sketch for a Mural on the Territory of the Lviv State Leather Enterprise (until 1976, the Svitanok Leather Company) 3
Basic information
ID
Г-II-341
Author
Vasyl Poliovyi
Name
Sketch for a Mural on the Territory of the Lviv State Leather Enterprise (until 1976, the Svitanok Leather Company)
Date of creation
1970s (?)
Country
the USSR
Culture
Ukrainian art of the Soviet period
Technique
mixed technique
Material
cardboard pastel
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
109.5 x 85.5
Additionally
Type
graphic art
Genre
symbolic art
Provenance
Handed over to the museum from Vasyl Poliovyi
Information about author
Author
Vasyl Poliovyi
Artist's lifetime
b.1936
Country
the USSR, the USA
Biography
Vasyl Poliovyi is a Ukrainian painter and graphic artist, one of the leading authors of Soviet Nonconformist art. He was born on April 22, 1936, in Kryvyi Rih city. The artist's father, Petro Poliovyi, worked as an engineer, and his mother, Oleksandra, was a mathematics teacher. With the start of hostilities on the territory of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the family was evacuated to the Sverdlovsk region (RSFSR). There Vasyl Poliovyi studied in school, and after completing his education in 1954, he entered an art school in Yelets. However, the artist later transferred to the Tavricheskaya Art School (Leningrad, RSFSR) and then to the Higher School of Industrial Art named after Vera Mukhina. After completing his studies, he moved to Moscow, where he worked at an art collective with his wife, artist Yuliia Podohova. He focused mainly on the monumental and decorative design of the interiors and the exteriors of public buildings and governmental institutions. At the same time, he was involved in the circle of nonconformist artists in Moscow and Leningrad, including Dmytro Krasnopevtsev, Anatolii Zverev, Mykhailo Shemiakin, Oleh Tselkov, Eduard Steinberg, Volodymyr Sterlihov, and the Lianozovo Group, as well as writers like Serhii Dovlatov, Yurii Mamleev, and Vladlen Gavrilchik. He participated in unofficial exhibitions, including those in the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia. In 1965, while visiting his brother, the researcher and inventor Renat Poliovyi, the artist created a large cycle of thematic works about Ukraine. Some of them were exhibited in Moscow. Later he joined the Artists' Union of the USSR. In 1972, Vasyl Poliovyi moved to Lviv, where he worked on monumental and easel paintings. During this period, he interacted with the local art community, including Valerii Shalenko, Mykhailo Steinberg, Yurii Sokolov, Okhrim Kravchenko, Margit and Roman Selsky, Anatolii Semahin, art critics Hryhorii Ostrovskyi and Dmytro Shelest, and writer Ihor Klekh. In 1976, Vasyl Poliovyi was expelled from the Artists' Union, which made his professional activity practically impossible. As a result, the artist decided to emigrate from the Soviet Union to the United States, where he still lives and works in Greenville, South Carolina.
Object description
This work is a sketch from a series of mural projects at the Lviv State Leather Enterprise (mural "History of Leather Production" for the institution's club, 1980). This cardboard depicts a work genre scene from contemporary leather production at an industrial enterprise at that time. The scene takes place in a workshop (it is difficult to establish the exact location due to the stylistic approach). All the characters are dressed according to the characteristics of Soviet specialised workwear. In the foreground is a group of four people; three are standing, and the fourth is sitting on a low stool and smoking a cigarette. This part is highlighted by bright asymmetrical yellow patches, contrasting in tone and colour. In the background, a worker is portrayed using a hose to wash the room (or the feedstock). This figure almost merges with the workshop space in tone and colour. The whole piece is executed in a rather decorative manner, maintaining the recognisability of its components through individual silhouette contours. The composition differs from the artist's earlier monumental work by the intense decorative nature of tones and shapes and a specific approach to consistency with real objects and filling the spaces with colour.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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