The artistic vacuum in the Soviet Union – where all artwork had to conform to the party line – couldn’t stifle the creative spirit in Ukraine altogether.
The artistic vacuum in the Soviet Union – where all artwork had to conform to the party line – couldn’t stifl e the creative spirit in Ukraine altogether.
Painter Vasyl Yermylov was one of those artists who had a major influence in shaping the avant-garde movement.
Born in 1894 in Kharkiv, he worked in a factory designing match boxes.
A talented painter, he was asked to draw Communist propaganda posters.
But Yermylov preferred Pablo Picasso and futurist artists’ work, which led to his dismissal from the artists’ union in 1949.
The painter was criticized for “cosmopolitism and submission to rotten Western culture.”
In Kyiv, you can see more than 200 of Yermylov’s works drawn together from different museums and private collectors, both in Ukraine and abroad.
Till Sunday, July 17, open 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Mystetsky Arsenal, 12 Lavrska St., 288-5226, www.artarsenal.in.ua. Tickets: Hr 10-25.
