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Sketch for a Mural

Vasyl Poliovyi

Basic information

ID: Ж-8202
Author: Vasyl Poliovyi
Name: Sketch for a Mural
Date of creation: 1970s (?)
Country: the USSR
Culture: Ukrainian art of the Soviet period
Technique: original technique
Material: fibreboard mixed media
Dimensions: 15.3 x 100.5 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: symbolic art
Plot: Allegory
Provenance: Handed over to the museum from Vasyl Poliovyi

Information about author

Author: Vasyl Poliovyi
Artist's lifetime: b.1936
Country: the USSR, the USA
Biography: Vasyl Poliovyi is a Ukrainian painter and graphic artist, one of the leading authors of Soviet Nonconformist art. He was born on April 22, 1936, in Kryvyi Rih city. The artist's father, Petro Poliovyi, worked as an engineer, and his mother, Oleksandra, was a mathematics teacher. With the start of hostilities on the territory of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the family was evacuated to the Sverdlovsk region (RSFSR). There Vasyl Poliovyi studied in school, and after completing his education in 1954, he entered an art school in Yelets. However, the artist later transferred to the Tavricheskaya Art School (Leningrad, RSFSR) and then to the Higher School of Industrial Art named after Vera Mukhina. After completing his studies, he moved to Moscow, where he worked at an art collective with his wife, artist Yuliia Podohova. He focused mainly on the monumental and decorative design of the interiors and the exteriors of public buildings and governmental institutions. At the same time, he was involved in the circle of nonconformist artists in Moscow and Leningrad, including Dmytro Krasnopevtsev, Anatolii Zverev, Mykhailo Shemiakin, Oleh Tselkov, Eduard Steinberg, Volodymyr Sterlihov, and the Lianozovo Group, as well as writers like Serhii Dovlatov, Yurii Mamleev, and Vladlen Gavrilchik. He participated in unofficial exhibitions, including those in the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia. In 1965, while visiting his brother, the researcher and inventor Renat Poliovyi, the artist created a large cycle of thematic works about Ukraine. Some of them were exhibited in Moscow. Later he joined the Artists' Union of the USSR. In 1972, Vasyl Poliovyi moved to Lviv, where he worked on monumental and easel paintings. During this period, he interacted with the local art community, including Valerii Shalenko, Mykhailo Steinberg, Yurii Sokolov, Okhrim Kravchenko, Margit and Roman Selsky, Anatolii Semahin, art critics Hryhorii Ostrovskyi and Dmytro Shelest, and writer Ihor Klekh. In 1976, Vasyl Poliovyi was expelled from the Artists' Union, which made his professional activity practically impossible. As a result, the artist decided to emigrate from the Soviet Union to the United States, where he still lives and works in Greenville, South Carolina.

Object description

The work is one of the sketches for the murals, possibly created for a sanatorium complex. The artwork's aesthetic is consistent with the practices of monumental and decorative art of that time, featuring a distinctive approach to stylising the images. The composition, essentially a horizontal narrative divided into seven thematic sections against a decorative background, is likely inspired by artists such as Hans Arp, Henri Matisse, and Henry Moore. It is notable for its "biomorphic" approach to depicting individual skeuomorphic patterns and unidentified objects. The first image on the left simultaneously depicts the motifs of boats, water environment, and sky, defying the laws of physics by combining or demonstrating the combination of different perspectives where the materiality and physicality of clouds are no less dense than the vehicle's hull. The next scene is a simple depiction of horses spending time in nature. Still, the solar motif in the upper left corner references Helios chariot's iconography. The next scene depicts two travellers preparing food over a campfire, smoothly transitioning into a different depiction of a landscape with distinctive, almost iconographic rocks, trees, and a bird. Besides these scenes, a group of four people resting on the water is depicted next to a crowd of athletes, running synchronously (the approach to stylisation and composition typical of Soviet sports iconography suggests this). Overall, the composition is cohesive, with a harmonious use of colour and tone. The predominance of calm and light tones suggests that the mural was intended to create an appropriate atmosphere in a space associated with various active and contemplative leisure options.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Sketch for a Mural

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