Girlfriends

On the back of the photograph is an inscription in russian, written with a blue ballpoint pen: "Ivanova A.M. Friends. 1920, Lubianka village, Kyiv region". A photograph of Antonina Ivanova's graphic work "Girlfriends", which in its pictorial style is similar to the works of other artists from Mykhailo Boichuk's circle (for example, the female types in the works of Oleksandr Saienko, Yevhen Sahaidachnyi's "Cooking" from the 1920s from the Gallery's collection, and Mariia Kholodna's "Under the Apple Tree" from the early 1920s from a private collection). At the same time, the style of interpretation of the faces is consistent with Antonina Ivanova's painting "Spinner" (kept in the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv), which also dates from the mid-1920s. The collection of the Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine includes a graphic work by Oksana Pavlenko, "Spinner" (1921), which is almost identical in composition and style to the above work by Antonina Ivanova (in the absence of reliable attributions, it could be assumed that it is a sketch for "Spinner" from the National Art Museum). Accordingly, hypothetically, such a "consonant" approach to stylistics at the spatial solution and composition level was accepted and widespread in this environment at that time. Hence, the photographed work by Antonina Ivanova from the Gallery's archive collection is evidence of important trends within Mykhailo Boichuk's circle.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery