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Sketch for the "Physicists at Work" Mural

Vasyl Poliovyi

  • Sketch for the "Physicists at Work" Mural 2
  • Sketch for the "Physicists at Work" Mural 3
Basic information
ID
Ж-8182
Author
Vasyl Poliovyi
Name
Sketch for the "Physicists at Work" Mural
Date of creation
1970s (?)
Country
the USSR
Culture
Ukrainian art of the Soviet period
Technique
mixed technique
Material
cardboard tempera
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
40.2 x 26.5
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 specificity of this sketch lies in the combination of images related to the practical application of nuclear energy and the discoveries of the first half of the 20th century during the Cold War. Timelessness is indicated by a generalised space and is complemented by the standard symbolic designations of the cardinal points – North (N) and South (S). The central part of the composition probably depicts a symbolic representation of an explosion and a "new sun" against a background of strategic nuclear weapons (it is almost impossible to identify whether it is, for example, an R-17 (index 8K14) or an R-21 (GRAU index 4K55), due to the peculiarities of the stylisation). The central image is complemented by elements, the upper one resembling a film or magnetic tape reel (from which strips seem to emerge) and the lower one a rolling mill or, more likely, given the context, the structure of a nuclear reactor unit. In general, the colouring is mixed and somewhat unsettling, and the approach to stylisation is decorative.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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