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Sketch for a Mural

Vasyl Poliovyi

Basic information

ID: Ж-8208
Author: Vasyl Poliovyi
Name: Sketch for a Mural
Date of creation: 1970s (?)
Country: the USSR
Culture: Ukrainian art of the Soviet period
Technique: original technique
Material: fibreboard mixed media
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 70 x 140

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: mythological painting
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

This artwork belongs to a series of sketches for monumental decoration intended for public spaces. Vasyl Poliovyi's way of object stylisation, concise and expressive language, and rich decorative elements are all present in the work, demonstrating an original approach to the task at hand. The colour scheme and palette are cool and focused on nuance, creating a contemplative emotional atmosphere. The composition revolves around a central figure stylised as an ancient deity. It is likely Calliope, the muse of science, bringing the light of knowledge into the space where a symbolic environment is combined from the heavens to the depths of the sea. On both sides of the central figure, in the middle and lower parts of the sketch, there are hierarchically contracted dynamic depictions of four human figures (in pairs on the left and right sides), possibly astronauts and explorers. The artist approached the space in a simultaneous manner. Thus, clouds are depicted next to the stylised fish on the right side of Calliope's figure. Additionally, the device in the sketch's lower part can be interpreted as a fictional spaceship or a bathyscaphe. It is important to note that this particular sketch was likely approved for execution at the site. The image is covered with a grid pattern, which would facilitate scaling for further image transfer onto the wall. The execution style of the left and right parts of the upper section of the sketch, as well as the stylised depiction of the doorway in the lower left part, suggests that the mural was intended to be integrated into the interior of a public space with a specific vault.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Sketch for a Mural

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