This week’s painter from Ukraine was born in Kharkiv in 1882, where he seems to have started his training before moving to Moscow in 1899. He’s Oleksandr Shevchenko (1882-1948), whose works spanned several modernist styles.
In Moscow he studied at the Stroganov State Academy of Arts and Industry until 1907. Between 1905-06 he travelled to England, Spain, Egypt, Turkey and France. When he was in Paris he attended the Académie Julian, where he worked under Étienne Dinet and Jean-Paul Laurens. He initially adopted a Neo-Primitivist style. After his return to Moscow he studied at its School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin, but is believed to have been expelled from there in 1909.
Shevchenko’s Women on the Boulevard from 1911 shows two almost identically dressed women standing on an avenue at night.
His full-length Portrait of a Poet from 1913 shows its subject posed with a book in his left hand.
In Musicians from the same year he shows the gentle influence of Cubism. This couple are busking in a street, with the man playing a violin, and woman a harp.
That year he published two influential books on art theory, one on Neo-Primitivism, the other on Cubism, both of which advocated folk art. From 1920 he turned increasingly to teaching, and in 1941 became head of the Department of Painting at the Moscow State Textile University.
He painted these Two Women in 1930.
During the 1930s he travelled to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan, where he came under Orientalist influence.
The Port at Night from 1935 is an unusual nocturne with an eerie light. Its sailing ships look ghostly with their mainsails set. A few people are walking in the street outside the port. The palm tree suggests this may be a fishing port on a Mediterranean or Black Sea coast.
Shevchenko painted In the Park in 1939, showing two women in wooded parkland.
In the late years of his career he was accused of ‘formalism’, but was allowed to continue painting. He died in Moscow in 1948.
References
Andrey Kurkov and others (2022) Treasures of Ukraine, A Nation’s Cultural Heritage, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978 0 500 02603 8.
Konstantin Akinsha and others (2022) In the Eye of the Storm, Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978 0 500 29715 5.
The Eclectic Light Company 