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Sketch for the "North" Mural

Vasyl Poliovyi

Basic information

ID: Ж-8174
Author: Vasyl Poliovyi
Name: Sketch for the "North" 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): 18.6 x 55

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 monumental work, presenting the traditional visual and everyday culture of one of the Samoyedic peoples in a symbolic form. The artist's figurative approach in developing the composition combines principles of primitive art and practices akin to iconography, including hierarchical structure, a timeless chronotope, and simultaneity. In the centre of the composition is a dwelling resembling a yaranga, covered with hides. One of its parts is transparent, revealing a domestic scene inside the dwelling to the viewer. A group of people is depicted gathered around a fire. One of the characters, elevated hierarchically by height, is reading a newspaper. Among them is a sled dog, likely before or soon after giving birth. On the right side, a fisherman is depicted in traditional attire with distinctive ornamentation: standing in a boat and holding a fish, likely a beluga (Huso huso) or another member of the sturgeon family. Behind this character, a navigable vessel is depicted, most likely a tugboat of an icebreaker type. To his left are figures of a deer, a dog, and two reindeer herders dressed in traditional winter clothing, including a malitsa and a yagushka. Under this group are silhouettes of animals that inhabit this region – a moose, a gyrfalcon, a bear, a wild boar, a fox, a hare, a marten, and an unidentified bird. In the left part of the composition, reindeer races, a contemporary multi-story building on stilts, and two groups of people are depicted. One of the groups is shown on the shore next to an agitator. He holds a red flag with inscriptions, probably made in gold thread, and seems to be standing on a deer. The other group is in boats moving towards stylised structures. The colour palette used by the author is warm, with ochre tones predominating. The entire space of the composition is filled with references to traditional folk art, and the stylisation is in harmony with shaman tambourine paintings. Notably, in the upper left corner is a fragment of a painting featuring an archaic depiction of a human figure.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Sketch for the "North" Mural

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