UK
Collection

Ivan Vyshenskyi

Mykola Fediuk

Basic information
ID
Ж-5809
Author
Mykola Fediuk
Name
Ivan Vyshenskyi
Country
Ukraine
Culture
Eastern Europe
Technique
tempera painting
Material
plywood tempera
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
23.5 x 32
Additionally
Type
painting
Genre
religious painting
Plot
Orthodox monk Ivan Vyshenskyi
Provenance
Purchased from O. Fediuk, 1982
Exposition
Lozinski Palace
Information about author
Author
Mykola Fediuk
Artist's lifetime
1885–1962
Biography
Mykola Fediuk (February 26, 1885, Golubtsi village (now Brody district) – May 17, 1962, Vynnyky town) was a figurative artist, painter, graphic artist, and teacher. Between 1896 and 1903, he received his primary education at Brody Gymnasium; later, between 1903 and 1907, he studied in Lviv Gymnasium. From 1907 to 1908, Mykola Fediuk attended the Faculty of Law of Lviv University. The circumstances of Mykola Fediuk’s acquaintance with Andrey Sheptytsky are unknown, but it was thanks to the Metropolitan's patronage that the future artist had the opportunity to start studying at the Krakow Academy of Arts. Between 1910 and 1916, the artist studied at the Krakow Academy, and later at the Munich Academy of Arts. He was the author of picturesque portraits and landscapes, such as “Cypresses” (1910), “Chapel in Lviv” (1910), “Self-Portrait” (1915), and others. All these works have been preserved in the funds of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv. He was also the author of articles on artistic topics. In general, the funds of the National Museum in Lviv house fifty paintings by Mykola Fediuk, dating from the 1910s to the 1950s. Mykola Fediuk has proved himself not only as a painter and graphic artist but also as a fine art critic and an excellent teacher. For some time, he lived in Brody, where he worked as a professor at the Jozef Korzeniowski State Gymnasium from 1923 to 1927. From 1934, the artist lived in the town of Vynnyky on Nova Street, 7 (now Mykola Fediuk Street). From 1947 to 1950, after the Second World War, Mykola Fediuk was a teacher and then head of the graphics department at the Institute of Decorative Arts in Lviv. In 1975, at the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art, Mykola Fediuk's first personal exhibition took place to mark the artist's 90th birthday (unfortunately, posthumously). In 1969, a fire in the Vynnyky house destroyed all the author's works in the attic. The master rightfully took a prominent place in the history of Ukrainian art of the twentieth century. Mykola Fediuk died and was buried in Vynnyky.
Object description
Against a stylised mountain landscape, an older man, half lying on his right side, with his head turned to the left and leaning on his right elbow, moves crosswise on a book. The man has a long grey beard, an elongated ascetic face and closed eyes. Clothing is brownish-brown in colour. At the top right is a cut tree with a twig branch. Along the top edge is a narrow strip of grey sky. The image is executed in a neo-Byzantine manner, using lines-movements, and lines reminiscent of the assize in the folds of clothing in ancient iconography, their rhythm is repeated in the outlines of the rocks and the saint's clothing.

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