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All This Was Done by this Peasant’s Son

Osyp Kurylas

Basic information

ID: Г-V-2193
Author: Osyp Kurylas
Name: All This Was Done by this Peasant’s Son
Technique: drawing
Material: paper Indian ink pen
Dimensions: 20 x 20 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: illustration
Provenance: Purchased from D. Semchyshyn, 1988

Information about author

Author: Osyp Kurylas
Artist's lifetime: 1870–1951
Country: Ukraine
Biography: Osyp Kurylas (07.08.1870, Shchyrets, now Pustomyty – 25.06.1951, Lviv) – painter, graphic artist. Member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine (1939, deputy chairman of the Lviv branch), Union of Ukrainian Visual Artists (1941). Graduated from the Lviv Art and Industrial School (1892). The young man wanted to continue his studies at the Academy of Arts, but this required money, which his father spent on raising his other children. So Osyp earned extra money by painting icons and portraits for townspeople. However, thanks to the help of his older brother, he was later able to study at the Kraków Academy of Arts (1895–1901), where he was taught by L. Wyczółkowski and J. Malczewski. Member of the Society for the Development of Ruthenian Art (Lviv, 1898). Participant in city art exhibitions since 1898. Had a solo exhibition in Lviv (1900). In 1903, he made a creative trip to Western Europe (Vienna, Dresden, Prague, Budapest). In 1906, he married Valeriia Skorkhan. In 1914, he was arrested by the Austrian government and taken to an emigration camp in the Western Carpathians. In 1915, he moved to Lviv, was mobilised into the Austro-Hungarian army, and enlisted in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen Legion, serving as a rifleman in the 1st Regiment of the Legion. He was a member of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen Press Office (1915–19). He taught drawing at the Ukrainian Women's Teachers' Gymnasium and O. Novakivskyi's Art School (1919–39). In 1935, after Novakivskyi's death, he became the head of the school. Deputy dean of the art faculty of the Ukrainian (secret) Technical School (1923–26) in Lviv. Teacher of painting at the Art and Industrial School and the Institute of Folk Art. Collaborated with the Lviv magazines "Dzvinok", "Zyz", "Nash Pryiatel", "Shliakhy", "Novyi Chas", and "Svit Dytyny" (a series of illustrations for "The Adventures of Yurchyk Kucheryavyi", "Hav on Holiday", and eight drawings for the biography of T. Shevchenko). His early graphic works are notable for their compositional compactness, generalisation of everyday fragments, moodiness, psychological characterisation of protagonists, and clarity of drawing. He was the author of sketches for the opera "Halka" by S. Moniuszko (1912), as well as portraits, landscapes, still lifes, illustrations for children's fairy tales, and postcards featuring themes such as the Sich Riflemen, Christmas, Easter, Ukrainian, and Polish songs. He turned to everyday and historical genres, painting canvases on military and religious themes. The artist drew caricatures and illustrated the humorous magazines of the Sich Riflemen, including "Samokhotnyk", "Respublikanskyi Samokhotnyk", "Bomba", and "Samopal". Forty paintings by Kurylas (including "Battle of Makivka", "Lysonia Battle", "The Battle at Sinna Square in Kyiv", "The Tailor’s Workshop", "The Nun", "The Rifleman over the Book", "Podhorunzhyi", "Field Chaplain"), which were removed from the special collections of the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art, were burned in 1948 and 1952. Osyp Kurylas, one of the founders of modern Ukrainian sacred art, used Ukrainian ornamentation in the icons "Jesus Christ – Heavenly Teacher", "The Blessed Virgin – Mother of the Ruthenian Land", "The Blessed Virgin – Mother of Ukraine" (published in 1910 in a large print run). He created icons for iconostases in churches in the United States, Canada, Poland, and Ukraine. He suffered material pressure and persecution. The artist's famous paintings include: "Country Girl" (1898), "Suburbs of Kraków" (1902), "Wife" (1903; 1918), "St. Demetrius" (1906), "The Funeral of T. Shevchenko" (1911), "The Homeless" (1914), "V. Shukhevych" (1916), "I Look: the Dawn has Come”, "T. Shevchenko" (both 1918), "Geese Grazing" (1926), "Chrysanthemums" (1930), "Hutsul Couple" (1937), "Metropolitan Andreyi Sheptytskyi", "In Hutsul Region" (both 1942), "Hutsuls Reading a Newspaper" (1945), "Woodcutters" (1947), "Self-Portrait" (1948). Among his graphic works, the illustrations for the novel "Fight for Rights" by M. Otamaniuk (1910) and "Yurza-Murza" by Y. Shkrumeliak stand out for their particular skill; covers for the folk calendar "Tovarysh" (Friend) (1911), alphabet book "First Reading Book for Ukrainian Children" (1922; 1926) and "Readers" (for grades 2, 3, and 4), the collection "News" by V. Stefanyk, and the novel "Boryslav Laughs" by I. Franko (both 1951; Lviv). A series of paintings by Osyp Kurylas on historical themes and portraits of statesmen and cultural figures for the book "History of Ukraine-Rus" (Kraków, 1912) by M. Arkas are well known. The artist is also known for his caricatures of Bohdan and Levko Lepkyis, M. Uhryn-Bezghrishnyi, I. Boberskyi, and M. Haivoronskyi, as well as his cartoons "The scythe hit a stone" and "Editor of Red Viburnum" (both 1917). After World War I, a series of postcards entitled "Riflemen Types" (1916–18) was published. In the post-war years, Osyp Kurylas worked mainly in the genre of socialist realism. Typical titles of his paintings from that period include "Collective Farm in the Shchyrets District" and "In the Collective Farmyard". The artist died on 25 June 1951 and is buried in Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.

Object description

The square-shaped drawing is executed in black ink with a pen. On the right side, on a raised platform, two figures are facing left. The first is a man in a luxurious black outfit with rich white trim and medals on his chest. Behind him is a female figure in light clothing, wearing a crown with three faces: the central one is female and smiling, the left one is a rough male with bulging eyes, a large nose, and fangs, and the right one is a bird's head. The man and woman point to a peasant standing on the left, his head bowed, shoulders hunched, with a long moustache and hands folded on his stomach. The peasant is dressed in a smushok (newborn lamb fur cap) and kozhukh (traditional Ukrainian fur coat). The illustration is based on the theme of Shevchenko, but is not dedicated to any specific work by T. Shevchenko; rather, it relates to the biography of the artist and poet as interpreted by Osyp Kurylas.

Inscriptions

In the lower right corner, there is the artist's signature in pen and ink. At the bottom, there is an inscription in pencil: "All this was done by this peasant's son".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

All This Was Done by this Peasant’s Son

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