“Borys Voznytsky was a unique figure in Lviv!”

Responding to the appeal from the gallery’s staff, President Viktor Yanukovych sent a letter to the minister of culture requesting Leonid Novokhatko to grant their petition asking that the institution be named after its long-time director, Hero of Ukraine, Academician Borys Voznytsky. “I ask you to resolve the matter in person, and to consider the establishment of the Voznytsky Prize for contributions to the preservation of the national cultural heritage,” the presidential letter reads.

Let us recall that the Lviv Art Gallery’s staff appealed to the president to resolve the matter of naming the gallery after Voznytsky (1926-2012), who led the institution from 1962 to 2012 and made it into one of the largest and finest museums in Ukraine, with over 63,000 works of Ukrainian and foreign art from antiquity to the present. Voznytsky initiated the creation of a number of museums that operate as branches of the gallery. They include the 18th Century Lviv Sacral Sculpture and Pinzel’s Heritage Museum, the Ancient Ukrainian Book Art Museum, the Piatnychany Tower, as well as Olesko, Zolochiv and Pidhirtsi castles. Voznytsky was the driving force behind the gallery’s emergence as a major research, restoration and educational center that has gained prestige and wide recognition both in Ukraine and abroad, entering the context of the global museum practice as a worthy participant.

The gallery’s staff remembers Voznytsky well and makes every effort to honor his memory again and again. With this in mind, several events are taking place now and in the coming days. The Lviv Art Gallery’s chief promoter Ivanna Novakivska told The Day that the artist Lidia Servetnyk-Yurchuk had donated her painting In Memoriam Voznytsky to the institution at Potocki Palace at 15 Kopernyka Street on April 14, as the Spring Salon exhibition was closing. The Voznytsky memorial exhibition “French Graphics in the Collection of the Lviv National Art Gallery” will open on April 16 at the Museum of Ancient Ukrainian Book at 15A Kopernyka Street as part of the French Spring project. The exhibition will feature 42 works by the 17th to early 20th century French artists. The 18th Century Lviv Baroque Sculpture and Pinzel’s Heritage Museum at 2 Mytna Square will host another Voznytsky memorial event, the charity concert of Pergolesi’s music “Stabat Mater” (“At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping…”), featuring the chamber quartet and soloists from the Lviv Philharmonic Society, as part of the Saving Our Treasures Together project.

Nadia TRUSH, chief information officer of the Lviv National Opera:

“We are used to see prominent people, heroes in our past, to hear about their lives during history lessons at school. However, in Voznytsky’s case, we have a real hero next door! Only a short time ago, we had the opportunity to chat with him and to see the wonders done before our eyes! Voznytsky discovered, created, and popularized, all on his own... He was a unique figure in Lviv!”

Ihor KOZHAN, director of the Sheptytsky Lviv National Museum:

“The gallery must be named after Voznytsky, above all, because this is the will of the staff, and the region’s public is behind it, too. Undoubtedly, Voznytsky’s contribution to the development of the Lviv National Gallery and Ukrainian museums in general deserves to be honored with the institution he led for half a century named after him. I hope the ministry of culture will manage to process all the documents needed to resolve the matter by May 23, the anniversary of Voznytsky’s tragic death, especially now that we have the president’s personal support.”