Or, to be more precise, the work of the multi-talented artist and academic who left the Soviet Union for France and then Venezuela, who made a new life for himself and his family in Caracas and who died there at the age of 81 in 1952, is being returned to Ukraine.
as and who died there at the age of 81 in 1952, is being returned to Ukraine.
“We are confident that now these works, which have been a treasure for us, will at last be studied by experts who understand how these can help strengthen the identity of the Ukrainian people and help construct a bridge between the past and the future,” Krychevsky’s granddaughter Oksana Linde de Ochoa read in halting Ukrainian at a presentation at Ukraine House on May 12. The ceremony marked the return of the collection to Kyiv.
The collection is comprised of some 300 Krychevsky pieces from the family archive, including oil paintings and watercolors, sketch-designs for such buildings as the City Council in Poltava and the Shevchenko Memorial Museum in Kaniv as well as graphics, patterns and drawings. Many examples graced the walls and display cases of Ukraine House, showing soft, romantic landscapes of Crimea painted by the artist in the 1920s, and river scenes of the Dnipro from the 1930s and ‘40s, rendered in pastel blues, greens and pinks.
A dream come true
In making her first trip to Ukraine, Linde de Ochoa was fulfilling the wish of her mother, Halyna Krychevska Linde, who was Krychevsky’s daughter, an artist herself, and a woman who dreamt of returning her father’s works to his native Ukraine.
Following the one-day exhibition in Kyiv, attended by such cultural and political luminaries as Culture Fund director Borys Olynik and Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, Linde de Ochoa went on to co-host presentations in Poltava and Kharkiv – cities also connected with Krychevsky.
“I’m looking forward to visiting all the places in Kyiv where my grandfather lived and worked,” she said. “Then I want to go to Crimea, because looking at his paintings, I know I would like that place, too.”
‘From Caracas to Ukraine’
Both Linde de Ochoa’s trip and the return of the Krychevsky collection was made possible through the patronage of several parties, including Michael Bleyzer, an American citizen originally from Kharkiv and president and CEO of SigmaBleyzer financial management, and his wife Natasha. After meeting in the United States in the winter of 2001, the three helped initiate plans to bring the collection to Ukraine. And once everything was finalized earlier this month, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington also hosted an exhibition called “From Caracas to Ukraine” before the party and the collection made the trip to Ukraine.
“I feel wonderful,” Bleyzer said following the May 12 presentation. “I think it’s an incredible accomplishment and I hope it’s the start of something bigger than this event; the beginning of the return of Ukrainian history and Ukrainian culture to Ukraine – all those things without which this country has no future.”
How the Krychevsky collection will be divided up among the museums of central and northeastern Ukraine remains to be seen, however. The family has requested that the collection be distributed among institutions in the cities and towns in which he worked, and a Culture Ministry commission is currently studying the problem. An unofficial plan would see the collection of 298 pieces quite evenly divided among the Kharkiv Art Museum, the Shevchenko National Reserve in Kaniv, the State Museum of Books and Book Publishing of Ukraine, the State Museum of Theater, Music and Cinematic Arts of Ukraine, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Poltava Local Lore Museum (the former City Council), the Museum of Cultural Heritage in Kyiv and the Art Museum in Lebedina.
Mission accomplished
Bleyzer stressed that it’s an accomplishment that there’s even a Krychevsky collection to return to Ukraine at all. He referred to the artist having lost most of his collection first in a house fire in Kyiv toward the end of World War I and then later having much of it confiscated by the Soviet authorities and customs officials when the family left Ukraine in 1943.
The artist had to recreate it and expand on it each time.
“And so Krychevsky started again in Paris and he started again in Caracas,” Bleyzer said. “A lot of the artwork you see is Ukrainian but was portrayed in Venezuela, and so for many specialists this is an incredible event because his collection is a blend of South American culture and South American art with Ukrainian memories; an incredible phenomenon.”
The experts agree.
“Critics already value Krychevsky’s work highly,” said Anatoly Melnyk, director of the National Art Museum of Ukraine. “It’s really very good and very important for Ukraine that Ukrainian art be in our country.”
As for now, Melnyk just has to wait and see what part of the collection NAMU will receive, and enjoy.
