“Living” sculpture of Hryhir Kruk

There are no mud huts with thatched roofs anymore in the village of Bratyshiv in Ivano-Frankivsk region. In one of such huts in the family of potter Yakiv Kruk a future sculptor was born on October 30, 1911. After finishing four years of school Hryhir Kruk went to study at woodworking industrial school in Stanislaviv, which had woodcarving, turning, woodturning, and carpentry departments. On the recommendation of his teacher Vasyl Lukasevych, Kruk moved to Lviv to study carving in the studio of Andrii Koverko, whom he assisted in creating the iconostasis for the chapel of the seminary.

In 1931 Kruk began his studies at the Department of Sculpture of the Industrial and Fine Art College. Famous Lviv professors Nalborczyk and Stashynsky taught there at that time.

The desire to gain a more thorough artistic education led the future artist in 1934 to the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. There Professor Konstantyn Liashchka, who led the studio of sculpture, saw the talent of the young artist. At that time many Ukrainian students, who later started the artistic circle “Zarevo,” studied there. Among the members of “Zarevo” there were Mykhailo Chereshnovsky, Maria Harasovska, and Myron Bilynsky. Later Kruk joined the circle. In 1937 he completed his studies at the Academy with the highest honors.

Bohdan Lepky, Professor at Krakow University, writer, and art critic helped the talented student to continue his studies at Berlin Academy of Arts, procured a scholarship from Ukrainian Research Institute in Berlin, introduced him to the leaders of the Ukrainian national association. In 1940 Kruk graduated from the Berlin Academy of Arts and he always spoke of his training at the studio of the sculptor Professor Arno Breker with much gratitude.

Being well aware of the situation and realizing that the return to the “liberated” Galicia could end up with an arrest the sculptor stayed in Berlin and got actively involved in the artistic life there. In the fall of 1942 he first took part in a Great Art Exhibition which featured (according to the catalogue) his compositions Rodyna Vtikachiv (Family of Fugitives, 1938) and Maty-Vtikachka z Dytynoiu (Fugitive Mother with a Child, 1942).

When in 1945 Berlin was occupied by the Red Army, Kruk, avoiding arbitrary deportation by the NKVD together with his brother Ivan Kruk moved to Munich, where he settled on 13, Elizabetstrasse. In the 1950s-1960s his apartment became a center for meetings of cultural leaders from Ukrainian Diaspora and in a spacious studio he created nearly 300 sculptures in clay and bronze, which were exhibited in 10 solo exhibitions at art centers of Western Europe and the US. The artist gained recognition after the Paris Exhibition in 1954.

The main theme of Kruk’s artistic work was the historical past of Ukraine, the life of peasant fugitives and immigrants, originally interpreted figures of women and children, nostalgia for his native land…

The peasant genre in Kruk’s artistic work is represented by the series of female figures: Shvachka (Seamstress, 1946), Zhinka, Shcho Stoit (Standing Woman, 1960), Maty z Dytynoiu (Mother and Child), Pislia Pratsi (After Work), and Divchyna (Girl, all from 1969). Peasant women in his art works have lush bodies and are physically strong. The artist focused on modeling rounded (sometimes even exaggerated) parts of female body. In most sculptures we see laconic, “sensitive and splendid” compositions, in which plastic bodies can be seen from under the garment as in the sculpture Lezhacha (Lying Woman, 1967).

In 40 years spent in exile Kruk created a series of busts of eminent figures of Ukrainian history and culture, including Prince Volodymyr the Great, Princess Anna, Ivan Mazepa, Symon Petliura, Vasyl Stefanyk, Taras Shevchenko, Sviatoslav Hordynsky, and Volodymyr Yanev. He also worked on small plastic forms and painted a lot.

In the last years of his life Kruk was alone, was down with the heart disease. He died in a shelter for elderly on December 5, 1988. He bequeathed his artistic legacy to the Ukrainian Free University in Munich.