OLEKSA SMIKH-SHATKIVSKYI

1908–1979

Oleksa Smikh-Shatkivskyi

Ukrainian painter, graphic artist, stage designer, teacher. In 1931-1939 he studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, his teachers being Skochylias, P. Prusz-kowsky, L. Wyluczkowsky. He was a member of the Spokiy (Quiet) group. In 1939, Smikh-Shatkivskyi returned to Pochayiv, where he worked as a teacher and artist. After World War II he began to work at Temopil Drama Theatre and in 1946 he moved to L’viv, where he taught at the Applied and Decorative Art Institute, the Ukrainian I. Fedorov Printing Institute and the I. Trush Applied Art School. The late 1950s saw significant changes in the painting style of the artist: he created models of painting and graphic works that were unsurpassed in terms of the power of their vividness. Along with his mains themes, such as lyric landscape, still life (mainly flowers), Smikh-Shatkivskyi also portrayed the classics of Ukrainian history, and folk traditions. A great and rich heritage of Oleksa Shat-kivskyi was a front-runner in the development of Ukraine’s national art of the second half of the 20s century. Oleksa Smikh-Shatkivsyi – one of the most interesting phenomena in the Ukrainian painting and graphic art of the 20th century.