Halyna Sylvestrivna Sevruk (, ; 18 May 1929 – 13 February 2022) was a Ukrainian artist who was particularly notable for her ceramics and mosaics. Her art often incorporated themes related to Ukrainian history and culture. She was a member of the Ukrainian

Sixtiers The Sixtiers (, ; "people of the 60s") were а new generation of young intellectuals who reawakened literature and a sense of Ukrainian nationalism within the Soviet intelligentsia. The Sixtiers entered the cultural and political life in Ukraine d ...

, a dissident movement of intellectuals within the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

Early years

Sevruk was born on 18 May 1929 in

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

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. As a result of forced emigration, her parents had been in Samarkand starting in 1920. Her father, Sylvestr Martynovych Sevruk, was an architect, and came from a Polish family. Her mother Iryna Dmytrivna () was Ukrainian, and was related to the noted architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi. The year after Halyna Sevruk's birth, the family moved to

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

, the largest city in the northeast region of Ukraine. They moved again in 1944, settling in the city of

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

Career

Sevruk began her artistic training by studying painting with the artist Hryhorii Svitlytskyi. She later recalled these years fondly, and noted that the experience shaped her commitment to being a "true artist". From 1947 to 1949, Sevruk attended the Shevchenko Art School, located in Kyiv, where she studied with Yurii Kyianchenko. In 1952, she began attending the Kyiv State Art Institute, graduating in 1959. She later observed that the instruction she received from the faculty at the Art Institute, which included renowned artists like Viktor Puzyrkov, did not match her personal artistic aspirations. In the 1960s, she worked as a decorator of buildings for the Art Fund. She developed a sense for incorporating elements of Ukrainian art, history, language and literature into her art. She joined the Club of Creative Youth in Kyiv, founded by Les Tanyuk, where she found like-minded artists who supported her ideas. In 1963, she completed "The Forest Song", the first of several mosaic pieces she would make. Another mosaic, entitled "Lily", was exhibited in 1964. In the same year, she also took up ceramics, a pursuit that would produce some of her better-known works. She created monumental ceramic artwork for installation in institutions, such as the Chorne More Hotel in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

, and the Khmilnyk Sanatorium. Sevruk started illustrating in ink, beginning in the late 1960s. Her illustrations appeared in several books of poetry, including a translated book of poetry by

Federico Garcia Lorca Federico (; ) is a given name and surname. It is a form of Frederick, most commonly found in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. People with the given name Federico Arts and language * Federico Ágreda, Venezuelan composer and DJ * Federico Aguil ...

. In 1968, she signed the Letter of 139, a letter from intellectuals opposing the reversal of the policies of

destalinization De-Stalinization () comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech "On t ...

and the persecution of some fellow artists. In response, she was expelled from the Union of Artists of Ukraine. Two fellow artists, Alla Horska and Liuda Semykina, were also expelled. Nine other artists who had signed the letter later "confessed" and thus avoided punishment. Sevruk's studio was closed, and for many years, she was prevented from exhibiting; her works were not welcomed into museums, galleries or exhibition halls. Sevruk was reinstated to the Union over 20 years later, in 1989. In the 1970s Sevruk experimented with different materials in her ceramics and continued to draw inspiration from folk elements and fairytales. She produced a number of paintings with a new artistic manner, many of which were tributes to people in her social circles. In 1970, she created a monumental

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

from reinforced concrete titled "The Tree of Life". This was destroyed as it did not comply with the official aesthetic standards. In 1984, after years of being unable to exhibit because of her political views, Sevruk held her first solo exhibition. The show was held at the Hryhorii Svitlytskyi Memorial House-Museum, at the home of her old teacher in Kyiv. In 1987, she had a second solo exhibition at the Museum of Podil.

Personal life and death

Sevruk died on 13 February 2022, at the age of 92.

Awards and recognition

She was awarded the

Andrey Sheptytsky Andrey Sheptytsky, OSBM (; ; 29 July 1865 – 1 November 1944) was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia and Archbishop of Lviv from 1901 until his death in 1944. His tenure in office spanned two world wars and six political r ...

Art Prize in 1994. The award is named in honor of a former Metropolitan of the Greek Catholic Church who was an art aficionado. Her art is on display at the Sixtier Museum in

References

External links

*
Ivan Svitlychny
' by Halnya. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sevruk, Halyna 1929 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Ukrainian women artists 20th-century Ukrainian artists 21st-century Ukrainian women artists 21st-century Ukrainian artists People from Samarkand People from Kharkiv Ukrainian women ceramists Ukrainian people of Polish descent Women mosaic artists