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Cossack Mamai

Yaroslava Muzyka

Basic information

ID: ФМз-Г-IV-73
Author: Yaroslava Muzyka
Name: Cossack Mamai
Date of creation: 1947
Country: the USSR
Technique: monotype
Material: paper
Dimensions: 34 x 24.5 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: history painting
Provenance: Yaroslava Muzyka Fund

Information about author

Author: Yaroslava Muzyka
Artist's lifetime: 1894–1973
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ukrainian SSR, now Ukraine
Biography: Yaroslava Muzyka (Stefanovych) was born in Zaliztsi in Ternopil region on January 10, 1894. She died on November 24, 1973, in Lviv. She was an artist of diverse preferences and talent. She turned to graphic art – linocuts, woodcuts, drypoint, monotype; painting – oil, tempera, gouache, encaustic; mosaic and enamel, on glass, grattage on gold or silver foil, batik, embossing on leather, embossing on metal. She studied drawing and painting at Leonard Podhorodecki Free Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv and André Lhote Academy in Paris. In 1928, she trained as an art restorer at the Central State Restoration Workshop of Ihor Grabar in Moscow. She also worked at the National Museum in the restoration workshop. Yaroslava Muzyka was one of the founders of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists (AIUA), a Ukrainian public art organization that operated in Lviv from 1931–1939. In 1937, the artist learned the difficult technique of burning enamel objects by attending Mariia Dolnytska classes in Lviv. In addition, she studied on her own using French and German enamelling manuals. The artist worked in the technique of bulk (scenic, painted) and cloisonne enamel. Her favourite subjects in the enamel works were Hutsul demonology, pagan mythology, beliefs of ancient Slavs, the works by Taras Shevchenko, images of animals, and female portraits.

Object description

The image depicts a colour print on the entire plane of the sheet. The Cossack with a long moustache and a forelock (oseledets – a traditional Ukrainian men's hairstyle with a long strand of hair on a shaved head) is depicted. He sits dressed in a blue garment (svyta) and red-ocher trousers, with a pink rug underneath. The Cossack holds a kobza in his hands. To the left in front of him is a sabre, and to the right is a bottle. Behind him is a blue horse with an ocher mane, tail and spots on the body; its head is turned towards the Cossack. The background of the picture is yellow-green with decorative light spots.

Inscriptions

At the bottom right of the margin is an inscription in pencil: "Muz. 47". On the reverse side at the top there is an inscription in pencil: "Y. Muzyka. ‘Cossack Mamai’ No. 267".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Cossack Mamai

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