Painting and graphics

The painting collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum numbers about 1,500 items and in subject matter covers the period from the development of primitive society to the present day. Among them are battle paintings, both large-scale and single combat, self-portraits and portraits of historical and political figures and of figures of culture and education, landscapes, scenes of industrial and everyday life, and still lifes.

The collection includes works by such well-known artists as S. I. Vasylkivskyi, V. I. Vykhtynskyi, Ye. I. Voloshynov, O. V. Hine, O. Yu. Leibfreid, A. L. Nasiedkin, K. K. Pervukhin, I. M. Prianishnikov, V. V. Parchevskyi, I. Yu. Repin, H. I. Semiradskyi, M. S. Samokish, P. M. Suponin, K. O. Trutovskyi and P. O. Levchenko. The paintings in the collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum make it possible to reveal historical processes with sufficient completeness, and they are actively used in the museum’s display work and research.

The painting collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum goes back to the city’s pre-war museums: the H. S. Skovoroda Historical Museum, the Artem Museum of Local Lore and the Central Ukrainian Museum of the October Revolution and the Civil War.

A feature of the “Painting” group is that, although it is not large (about 1,500 items), in subject matter it covers the period from the development of primitive society to the works of Kharkiv artists of the second half of the 20th century. Among them are scenes of hunting by primitive people, battle scenes (both large-scale and single combat), self-portraits and portraits of historical and political figures and of figures of culture and education, landscapes, scenes of industrial and everyday life, and still lifes.

A separate group in the “Painting” collection consists of established religious subjects, which reflect the best traditions of tempera painting of icon-painting schools across Ukraine, starting from the 17th century. Among the tempera paintings (icons) kept in the Kharkiv Historical Museum are: “Icon of the Vladimir Mother of God. 18th century”, “Icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God. 1858”, “Icon of the Smolensk Mother of God. 1850” and “Icon of the Mother of God. 1739”.

Special attention should be given to individual well-known artists represented in the collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum: S. I. Vasylkivskyi, V. I. Vykhtynskyi, Ye. I. Voloshynov, O. V. Hine, O. Yu. Leibfreid, A. L. Nasiedkin, K. K. Pervukhin, I. M. Prianishnikov, V. V. Parchevskyi, I. Yu. Repin, H. I. Semiradskyi, M. S. Samokish, P. M. Suponin, K. O. Trutovskyi and P. O. Levchenko.

S. I. Vasylkivskyi (1854–1917) was a landscape painter, the author of almost 3,500 works of art, who also worked in the genre of everyday life. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has about 30 of his works. The best known are “A Cossack Levada. At the Pasture”, which is one of the versions of the painting, “A Ukrainian Idyll. The Cottage”, “The Fight of the Cossack Holota” and a self-portrait.

I. Yu. Repin (1844–1930) was a Russian painter, born in Chuhuiv, who spent almost his whole life abroad. He studied at the St Petersburg drawing school of R. K. Zhukovskyi and at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, was a pensioner in France and Italy, was a member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (the Peredvizhniki), an adherent of the aesthetics of the revolutionary democrats, and mastered open-air painting. From 1876 to 1880 he lived in his homeland, in Chuhuiv; he spent his last years in St Petersburg and Finland, where he died. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has, unfortunately, only three works by the great artist: “A Cossack in the Steppe”, “Portrait of D. I. Bahalii” and “The Pereiaslav Council”, one of the versions.

I. M. Prianishnikov (1840–1894) was a Russian painter, a member of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and a founding member of the Peredvizhniki society. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds his work “The Illegal Woodcutter”.

H. I. Semiradskyi (1843–1902) was a Polish and Russian painter, a member of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has his work “The Funeral of a Noble Rus”.

M. S. Samokish (1860–1944) was a Ukrainian painter and graphic artist who worked in animal, battle and historical painting. He was born in Nizhyn and studied at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, where he later became an academician. He was a pensioner in Paris, a full member of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, a teacher, head of the battle-painting class at the Academy of Arts and an Honoured Art Worker of the USSR. In 1936–1941 he taught at the Kharkiv Art Institute. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds about 10 works by the artist. Special attention should be paid to “The Kharkiv Fortress in the 18th Century”, “An Episode of the Imperialist War” and “Kharkiv Cossacks in Battle at Gross-Jägersdorf”.

Ye. H. Voloshynov (1823–1913) was a still-life painter who studied at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and worked in Kharkiv in 1859–1884. He taught drawing at the Institute for Noble Girls and the Mariinsky Girls’ Gymnasium, and exhibited with the Kharkiv circle of fine-art lovers of the Society of Kharkiv Artists. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has about 25 of his works, for example “Grapes”, “Pumpkins”, “Fish” and “Watermelons”.

K. O. Trutovskyi (1826–1893) was a Ukrainian painter and an auditor at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds three of his works: “A Ball at a Landowner’s Estate”, “Myrhorod” and “Supper in the Field”.

O. V. Hine (1830–1880) was an artist and an academician of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has his work “The Sviatohirsk Monastery-Fortress. 1598”.

K. K. Pervukhin (1863–1915) was a landscape painter and teacher, one of the younger generation of Peredvizhniki artists. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has his work “Winter Landscape”.

P. O. Levchenko (1856–1917) was a Ukrainian painter who recreated vivid, poetic images of Ukrainian nature. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has about ten of his works, the brightest of which are “The House of Worship”, “The Cottage on Zhuravlivka”, “The Mill” and “The Gazebo”.

P. M. Suponin (1898–1990) was a painter and graphic artist who graduated from the Kharkiv Art Institute and taught there in 1944–1986. He was an associate professor and a member of the Union of Kharkiv Artists from 1957. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum numbers about 15 works by the artist. The most interesting are “23 August 1943. Kharkiv, Haharin Street”, “The Ruins of the Humpbacked Bridge”, “Reconstruction Work at the KhTZ (Kharkiv Tractor Plant)”, “Kharkiv Railway Station” and “Morning in Nova Kakhovka”.

V. I. Vykhtynskyi (1918–2003) was a graphic artist and painter. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds more than 30 of his works, for example “A Fair in Kharkiv in the 18th Century”, “The Potter”, “Ploughing” and “Peter I Inspects the Kharkiv Fortress in 1709”, as well as depictions of memorial places connected with the name of Joseph Stalin.

O. Yu. Leibfreid (1910–2003) was an architect, born in Kharkiv, where he graduated from the building trade school. From 1935 he headed the First Architectural Workshop at Prombudproekt, taught at the Kharkiv Civil Engineering Institute, and was a candidate of architecture, a chief architect and an artist. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds 3 works by the artist: “Stalingrad. Pavlov’s House”, “Stalingrad. The Mill” and “In the Boyar Chambers of the 16th–17th Centuries in Zariadia”.

A. L. Nasiedkin (1924–1994) was a painter and Honoured Art Worker of Ukraine who worked in easel painting and easel book illustration. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds about 20 of his works. The most interesting of them are “Kvitka-Osnovianenko at the Fair”, “Karl Marx’s Speech at the Hague Peace Conference, 1848”, “Skovoroda among Peasants” and “The Popular Uprising in Kyiv in 1113”.

V. V. Parchevskyi (1914–1975) was born and worked in Kharkiv in easel painting and graphic art. He graduated from the Kharkiv Art Institute (1940–1950), studied under M. Deriehus, and was a member of the Kharkiv branch of the Union of Artists of Ukraine from 1956. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum has about 15 works by the artist, for example “Kovpak’s Exit from the Carpathians” (Zh-480), “The Defence of Sevastopol. 1854–1855”, “To the Wild Steppe”, “The Battle with the Swedes near Horodne Village”, “The Heroic Feat of the Shyronin Men” and “The Drawing Up of a Programme by the Kharkiv Secret Society in 1856”.

The collection also holds artworks made by Kharkiv artists during the 1940s–1950s and transferred by the Kharkiv art workshops. These works require further study regarding authorship. The most interesting among them are “Cossack Mamai”, “O. Nevskyi”, “The Battle with the Haidamaks in Odesa” and “Prince Volkonskyi”.

The next large group of pictorial items is graphic art. Graphic art is a kind of fine art that combines drawing and the printed artistic work (an engraving, a lithograph and so on), based on the art of drawing but having its own means of depiction and expressive possibilities. For storage purposes, drawings are attached to the “Painting” group. The tasks of drawing have much in common with painting, and the boundary between them is conventional. The museum’s collection keeps a considerable number of drawings, a vivid example of which is Ye. I. Voloshynov’s academic pencil drawings of busts of ancient Greek sculpture.

Graphic art is divided into easel, book, newspaper and magazine, applied, and poster graphics. Easel graphics turn to the traditional genres of the fine arts. Book and newspaper-and-magazine graphics deal with illustrating publications and creating typeface designs. Applied and industrial graphics have in the course of their development acquired a wide range of functions and introduced decorativeness into the design of utilitarian objects. An illustration of this is the labels from various products of the food and tobacco industries of the late 19th century to the 1920s and of the 1980s–1990s: chocolate, alcoholic and soft drinks, sweets, biscuits, tobacco products, mineral water and so on. They impress with their brightness and the variety of their images, and also contain advertising of the goods. For example: “A label from a box of ‘Ecossaise’ sweets by the factory of Zh. Borman”, “Cigarette labels of the tobacco factory ‘M. Ilyk and Son’ in Kharkiv, late 19th century”, “A label for Dutch cocoa from the factory of M. D. Kromskyi, late 19th century”, “A label from a sweet of the Kharkiv confectionery factory ‘Prohres’, early 20th century”, “A label for packing cigarette tubes ‘Baronskie’, late 19th – early 20th century”, “A label of ‘Berezivska’ water (Nova Bavaria), 1986” and “A label of ‘Moskovske’ beer (Nova Bavaria), 1992”.