Vladimir Sosnovsky (; 1922–1990) was a Ukrainian artist, known as a

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

and realist

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

. He was born in

Nova Ushytsia Nova Ushytsia (; ; ) is a rural settlement in Kamianets-Podilskyi Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Nova Ushytsia settlement hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The settlement's population was 4,557 ...

, Khmelnitzky Region, Ukraine. In 1928 his family moved to

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 ...

. As a child he showed a love of drawing, and his parents sent him to art school. In 1939, he joined the Grekov Odesa Art School, but with the onset of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, after completing only two years of study, he was asked to serve at the front. On his return in 1945, he continued his studies under well-known artist Leonid Mutchnik. In 1948, he entered the Kyiv Art Institute and graduated in 1954. He then worked as a deputy director at the Odesa Western and Oriental Art Museum. From 1956 he taught painting at the Odesa Theatre and Art College until his death in 1990. Sosnovsky did not promote his art or himself, or try to be a fashionable painter. Obsessed with painting, he spent his free time painting ''

en plein air ''En plein air'' (; French language, French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein ai ...

''. He loved nature and painted it obsessively. Sincerity was Sosnovsky' main characteristic, his motto and his goal. Touched by Sosnovsky's art—his lyricism and alive romanticism—a well-known modern artist said after visiting his posthumous exhibition, "I've began to doubt my own methods after seeing Sosnovsky's Realism. I admit my defeat."

External links

Short biography at ''The Russian Art Gallery''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sosnovsky, Vladimir 1922 births 1990 deaths Ukrainian landscape painters 20th-century Ukrainian painters 20th-century Ukrainian male artists Ukrainian male painters Soviet painters