Winter palette of classics

“Winter fun, snow drifts, whimsical snowmen. It is always, every year, great holiday season for soul,” wrote a talented artist Viktor Zaretsky in his diary. Two of his paintings are presented at the exhibition “Winter Palette.”

“We were working on this exhibition just when Kyiv got all covered with snow. Real snowy winter came in two days this year. It came suddenly and swiftly. We chose only the best paintings for the exposition,” said Zoriana HUK, director of the art gallery “Gallery 15/5.” “Here you can see both the paintings that have been displayed before and the new paintings – discovery from the gallery’s collection. Among the authors there are Andrii Kotska, Vasyl Shukhaiev, Viktor Zaretsky, Roman Selsky – iconic names in the history of painting.”

By the way, the exposition also features the masterpiece of Andrii Kotska Carpathian Village in Winter Time. Kotska received a diploma of a teacher in Uzhhorod. During the time when he taught in school he continued to work on his paintings. In 1939 he took part in the all-Hungarian exhibition of fine arts, where he presented eight paintings made from the everyday life of peasants in Turianska Valley. After this exhibition the artist won, so to speak, a grant for studying in Rome. Upon his return from Italy, Kotska participated in exhibitions of Transcarpathian artists in Moscow and Kyiv. His most famous paintings are Uzhhorod, Bazaar in Perechyn, Near the Church, and Carpathian Village in Winter Time. You can read more about Kotska’s art in The Day’s article “Reflective landscape and psychological portrait” (issue No. 67 from November 24, 2011).

The exhibition also features works of other great Ukrainian artists. Roman Selsky is a representative of the Lviv underground, founder of the underground school “Artes,” his work, in particular, serves as a link between the art of boichukists and the artists-Sixtiers. Viktor Zaretsky is one of the leading artists from the generation of the Sixtiers. In recent years his art work has attracted a lot of attention. Last year the 4th Great Antique Salon presented the most prominent exhibition of his works. Vasyl Shukhaiev is probably better known in Georgia than in Ukraine. He worked in Petrograd, Paris and when in 1935 he came back to the USSR he was immediately arrested and sent to a concentration camp at Kolyma. After 12 long years in 1947 Shukhaiev moved to Tbilisi, where he eventually earned the title of Honored Artist of Georgian SSR. The artist was a supporter of classicism, which in the early 20th century became topical to some extent and was somewhat popular. Therefore, his contemporaries often called him a neoclassic artist. Later he combined exquisite traditionalism and portrait painting in his paintings (you can read more in The Day’s article “Having faith in art” No. 59 from October 9, 2012).

Exhibition “Winter Palette” will be open at the Gallery 15/5 (15/5 Instytutska Street) until the end of February.