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Sketch for a Mural

Vasyl Poliovyi

Basic information

ID: Ж-8194
Author: Vasyl Poliovyi
Name: Sketch for a Mural
Date of creation: 1970s (?)
Culture: Ukrainian art of the Soviet period
Technique: original technique
Material: fibreboard mixed media
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 13 x 120.7

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: symbolic art
Plot: Allegory
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

The work is a sketch for a mural, possibly designed for a public space. The style of the artwork represents the monumental and decorative approach of the 1970s, with the inherent pathos of the Soviet modernist industrial futurology aesthetics. The main elements of the composition are the state emblem of the USSR and a stylised flag. The artwork is flanked by industrial facilities on both sides, probably related to energy production (from natural gas). In the central part is a flare line motif (a gas venting candle designed to reduce pressure in the equipment). The ideological narrative in this context is reinforced by the visualisation of practical technocratic achievements, which illustrates the statement about the USSR being an exclusively economically prosperous country. The colour palette entails a balanced use of cool and warm colours. At the same time, the tonal gradation is diversified by a series of accents, which provide visual expressiveness and dynamism to the image. The artist's approach to stylising ideological forms has made them visually challenging, thus making them rather decorative and traceable mainly through their silhouettes. At the same time, the plane of the elements is varied in tone and colour, making them less recognisable. Due to the well-designed background, which probably symbolises the sky, the work is perceived comprehensively, with a specific narrative tone, transforming a group of scattered elements into a stylised industrial landscape.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Sketch for a Mural

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