Tag: Ukrainian art

Beautiful Ukrainian donations : the April 2024 Ukrainian item(s) of the month

On By europeancollectionsIn New Acquisitions, Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment

A few weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to receive a donation of five lovely books from the Kharkiv-based publisher Oleksandr Savchook and the organisation Progress-14.

The five donations add to the 12 Savchook titles we had previously bought and which were published between 2014 and 2021.  The five new publications, which reflect the core strengths of Mr Savchook’s publishing house in terms of their concentration on the arts, were published in 2022 and 2023 and make very welcome additions to Cambridge’s Ukrainian collection. Continue reading “Beautiful Ukrainian donations : the April 2024 Ukrainian item(s) of the month” →

Ukrainian ceramicist Olʹha Rapaĭ-Markish : the January 2024 Slavonic item of the month

On By europeancollectionsIn New Acquisitions, Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment

The 2018 publication Olʹha Rapaĭ-Markish arrived in Cambridge later that same year but I only recently managed to take a proper look.  Olʹha Rapaĭ-Markish (also known as Olʹha Rapaĭ or the anglicised Olha/Olga Rapay), 1929-2012, was a Ukrainian artist most known for her ceramics, large and small, and this book explores her often tragic life and her delightful work.  [Note that her father, Peret︠s︡/Peretz Markish, the major Yiddish writer who was shot in Moscow in 1952 during the Night of the Murdered Poets, features in the book, and that we have other books by/about him here.]

It’s impossible to do justice to the book’s reproductions of the artist’s work with only a phone camera, but hopefully the images here give some kind of tempting idea.  Rapaĭ-Markish’s work ranged from the large-scale (featuring in and on several buildings in Kyïv) but this book’s reproductions focus more on her small-scale work, especially the wonderful figurines she produced, full of life and joy – and cats (the book includes a photo of the artist with her cat muse).  This is our only book about Rapaĭ-Markish’s work, and definitely worth calling up to consult in the UL.

Mel Bach

Vasylʹ Krychevsʹkyĭ

On By europeancollectionsIn Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment
The first of a string of tweets about Krychevs’kyi’s work: https://twitter.com/ukr_arthistory/status/1704569277355880937

A Twitter post this week from an account drawing attention to Ukrainian art focused on the beautiful work of Vasylʹ Krychevsʹkyĭ (anglicised as Vasyl Krychevsky).  Krychevsʹkyĭ was born in the Khar’kiv region in 1873 and became a famed and feted artist in Ukraine, but he left the country after the Second World War and died far from his homeland, in Venezuela, in 1952.

In her entry for Krychevsʹkyĭ in Oxford Art Online, Myroslava M. Mudrak describes how “[t]he pure, harmonious colours of his southern Ukrainian landscapes convey the lyrical atmosphere of his native land”, as shown by the beautiful painting used in the first tweet about his work and reproduced here.  The artist’s talents stretched to architecture, stage design, book design, and more.  A list of the films to which he was artistic director or consultant can be found on this VUFKU page (in Ukrainian). Continue reading “Vasylʹ Krychevsʹkyĭ” →

30 rokiv prysutnosti : modern Ukrainian artists

On By europeancollectionsIn New Acquisitions, Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment

It is rather hard to concentrate on anything other than the unfolding news in Russia, but Russia’s war against Ukraine is still taking lives – plus we should remember that the Putin/Prigozhin disagreement has always, essentially, been about how best to eliminate Ukraine.

So let’s look at 30 rokiv prysutnosti (30 years of presence), a 3-volume introduction to dozens of modern Ukrainian artists, published in 2021 and 2022.

‘The Russians are coming’ (2015)

Continue reading “30 rokiv prysutnosti : modern Ukrainian artists” →

History of Modern Russian and Ukrainian Art Online

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, ebooks, New Acquisitions, Russian, Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment

This week, we were able to buy permanent purchase to this long-requested database of Ukrainian and Russian art history books and journals  From the supplier’s promotional material:

The collection documents the history of modern Russian and Ukrainian art. It encompasses critical literature, illustrated books, and art periodicals. It also offers a selection of early 20th century art-related serials. These historical sources of pre- and post-revolutionary art reflect the diversity of artistic thought in the first thirty years of the 20th century.

This is hugely welcome news for our researchers, with requests for this database coming in regularly over the years but with enough money to make the purchase only coming now.  The books and journal issues were scanned from microfilm, so are all in black and white (as many would of course have been originally), which takes a slight shine off the delight, but our students and academics have been clear that this is a collection Cambridge really needs.

Next week, we will load records for the database’s individual titles into iDiscover, but for the moment you can browse the 140-odd books and 30 or so journals (listed at the end of the page the following link takes you to, under Other) directly on the Brill platform:

https://ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/login?url=https://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/history-of-modern-russian-and-ukrainian-art

*illustrations from Anatolʹ Petryt︠s︡kyĭ’s 1929 Teatralʹni stroï

Mel Bach

English books from Ukrainian publisher Osnovy

On By europeancollectionsIn English, New AcquisitionsLeave a comment

This week, a few books arrived that had been recommended by a Ukrainian postgraduate.  She made a blanket recommendation for books published by Kyiv-based Osnovy Publishing, who describe their interest as being “visually engaging publications with contemporary, design-forward books on photography, art and culture” and their specialism as “art and books about architecture and cultural phenomena” (from this page).

Continue reading “English books from Ukrainian publisher Osnovy” →

Untangling a record for a Ukrainian book

On By europeancollectionsIn Slavonic, Ukrainian1 Comment

It crossed my mind today to look up in our staff cataloguing system books published in Ukraine and coded as being in Russian, to see whether any of them had been incorrectly coded.  The fifth result was exactly that – a Ukrainian title mangled in transliteration performed in keeping with the rules for Russian:

  • Мистецтво стародавнього Києва [by]  Ю.С. Асєєв –>
  • Mystet︠s︡tvo starodavnʹoho Kyi︠e︡va [by]  I︠U︡.S. Asi︠e︡i︠e︡v (correct)
  • Mistet︡s︠tvo starodavnʹogo Kieva [by] I︠U︡.S. Aseev (very incorrect)

Continue reading “Untangling a record for a Ukrainian book” →

Mariia Prymachenko : a Ukrainian artist for peace

On By europeancollectionsIn Slavonic, Ukrainian1 Comment
A Dove Has Spread Her Wings and Asks for Peace

Among the many awful news headlines this week was the damage done to the Ivankiv Museum, whose site (in Ukrainian) still lists its exhibition of works by the 20th-century artist Marii︠a︡ Prymachenko as its proudest achievement.  The paintings of Prymachenko, a self-trained artist in the naïve style, floored even Pablo Picasso. Continue reading “Mariia Prymachenko : a Ukrainian artist for peace” →