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Portrait of Maksym Muzyka

Yaroslava Muzyka

Basic information

ID: ФМз-Ж-327
Author: Yaroslava Muzyka
Name: Portrait of Maksym Muzyka
Date of creation: 1924
Country: Ukraine
Culture: Eastern Europe
Technique: mixed technique
Material: old icon panel levkas tempera oil
Dimensions: 39 x 29 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Provenance: Yaroslava Muzyka Fund

Information about author

Author: Yaroslava Muzyka
Artist's lifetime: 1894–1973
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ukrainian SSR, now Ukraine
Biography: Yaroslava Muzyka (Stefanovych) was born in Zaliztsi in Ternopil region on January 10, 1894. She died on November 24, 1973, in Lviv. She was an artist of diverse preferences and talent. She turned to graphic art – linocuts, woodcuts, drypoint, monotype; painting – oil, tempera, gouache, encaustic; mosaic and enamel, on glass, grattage on gold or silver foil, batik, embossing on leather, embossing on metal. She studied drawing and painting at Leonard Podhorodecki Free Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv and André Lhote Academy in Paris. In 1928, she trained as an art restorer at the Central State Restoration Workshop of Ihor Grabar in Moscow. She also worked at the National Museum in the restoration workshop. Yaroslava Muzyka was one of the founders of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists (AIUA), a Ukrainian public art organization that operated in Lviv from 1931–1939. In 1937, the artist learned the difficult technique of burning enamel objects by attending Mariia Dolnytska classes in Lviv. In addition, she studied on her own using French and German enamelling manuals. The artist worked in the technique of bulk (scenic, painted) and cloisonne enamel. Her favourite subjects in the enamel works were Hutsul demonology, pagan mythology, beliefs of ancient Slavs, the works by Taras Shevchenko, images of animals, and female portraits.

Object description

An old icon board depicts a bust-length portrait of Maksym Muzyka, a husband of Yaroslava Muzyka. He was a well-known scientist-microbiologist in Lviv. He was a member of Shevchenko Scientific Society, Director of the Institute of Bacteriology and Chemistry of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. In 1920–1924 he was a Dean of the Secret Ukrainian University in Lviv and a head of the laboratory of the "cash desk for the sick". In 1939–1941 – Deputy Director and Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Lviv Medical Institute. In 1941 he was invited to work in Kyiv, when the war began he was evacuated to Bishkek. In 1944 he became director and then deputy director of the Lviv Veterinary Institute.

Portrayed person