Potter and museum worker received Borys Voznytsky Prize

The jury headed by the President of the Ukrainian National Committee of the International Council of Museums Serhii Laievsky selected three most worthy candidates: Vira Vynohradova, Director of the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Art, Nadia Kapustina, Director of Dmytro Yavornytsky Dnipropetrovsk National Historical Museum, and Oles Poshyvailo, the founder and Director (1986-2003) of the National Museum Reserve of Ukrainian Pottery in Opishne.

Memorable distinction shaped as a fine column of polished stainless steel with a coded name of Borys Voznytsky and 25,000 hryvnias have been awarded to Oles Poshyvailo, currently the deputy chairman of the Supervisory Board and leading researcher of the Museum Reserve (his pottery’s roots reach back to the second half of the 17th century and his grandmother Yavdokha bequeathed him to be a museum worker and continue the family trade, which she started in Opishne).

“In today’s Ukraine only devotees can be engaged in museum work,” said Oles Poshyvailo. “I have guarded my native pottery capital. I am very pleased that here in Opishne we were able to gather a collection of 50,000 ceramics artifacts, which is currently the largest collection in Ukraine.”

The award, founded by the National Cultural and Art Museum Complex “Mystetsky Arsenal” together with Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Gallery of Arts and Charity Foundation “Mystetsky Arsenal,” is awarded for the first time, but the director of the Mystetsky Arsenal Natalia Zabolotna hopes that the award will be presented annually and nationwide. In his turn, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Kostiantyn Hryshchenko and Minister of Culture of Ukraine Leonid Novokhatko, who attended the ceremony of awarding the memorable prize, assured the community of museum workers that the state won’t neglect the work of their whole life.

The awarding ceremony was also attended by Voznytsky’s daughter Larysa Razinkova-Voznytska. She thanked the founders of the award. She also spoke about heroic museum activity of her father, who saved over 30,000 museum artifacts of estimated value of more than 17 billion euros.

The ceremony of awarding the prize “For Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Museums” was the final chord of the largest inter-museum project of Ukraine – exhibition “Grand and Great,” which gathered more than 1,000 outstanding works of Ukrainian art from 35 museums of our country under the arches of Mystetsky Arsenal.