Vovkiv. The Ustyianovych Museum-Estate

The list of Ukraine's museums includes not only large exhibition centres and galleries with masterpieces of world importance, but also small memorial house-estates, no less interesting and appealing to seekers of something new and little known. What makes rural museums special is the wish to preserve history, cultural heritage and information about a locality's distinguished natives. Museum collections in small settlements can be considered folk collections: they are created by the whole community and survive on their own.

 

Vovkiv, Lviv region. The Ustyianovych Art and Memorial Museum-Estate

Lviv. The Sculptures of Stryiskyi Park

For Lviv Sculpture Week 2023

Part of the collection of the ChervoneChorne art association: especially for Lviv's annual week, these unconventional creations by well-known authors were brought from historic Kaniv to the cultural capital.

 

Truskavets. The M. Bilas Art Museum and Villa Hopliana

Rest and recuperation at the resorts are synchronised with cultural pastimes, and visiting museums and exhibitions is one of the main occupations of the holidaymakers. The Mykhailo Bilas Art Museum stands in the centre of Truskavets, in its busiest spot — Kobzar Square.

 

Truskavets. The Mykhailo Bilas Art Museum. Interiors

Monuments to T. H. Shevchenko Across Ukraine

From our school lessons we remember the dates tied to the life and work of Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko. 1814 — 1861 — these are the 47 years of the life's journey of a great poet, playwright, artist and public figure, at the dawn of industrial development in Ukraine and of the peasant movement against serfdom. Shevchenko spent 24 years in serfdom and 10 years in exile. There is a number that grows year by year — the number of monuments and memorial markers raised in honour of the national poet.

 

Ternopil. Monument to T. H. Shevchenko. 1982. Sculptors M. Neveselyi and S. Kalashnyk

Kramatorsk. Street Art, or a Street of Murals

Since October 2019, huge pictures have adorned the walls of buildings in Kramatorsk, executed so masterfully that they are indistinguishable from photographs. Dull pre-war buildings on Marata Street and two buildings on Akademichna Street were chosen for the street art. The large-scale wall paintings were created by professional artists, true wizards, invited to Ukraine from various countries.

Mosaic. A Vanishing Layer of Art. Hurry to See It!

The resonant destruction of a mosaic beloved by Lvivians on the demolished 'Okean' store makes one think about preserving examples of monumental art. Many mosaic pictures bear no communist symbols. Unique, spectacular frescoes are being ruined by spiritlessness and mismanagement.

Pavlohrad. Dnipropetrovsk region. Mosaic panel. Shevchenko Street, 120

Poltava. The Ivan Kotliarevskyi Memorial Estate Museum

The works of the writer and enlightener Ivan Petrovych Kotliarevskyi remain relevant and, in the 21st century, still find their way to the reader's heart. More than 200 years ago, in his much-criticised "Eneida", the Ukrainian playwright voiced a protest against the advance of the imperial forces of the northern neighbour and mocked the people's powerlessness to resist the enthronement of great-power ambition and the loss of Cossack autonomy. The classic of new Ukrainian literature was born, studied, worked and died in Poltava, and he wrote in the Poltava dialect of the Ukrainian language.

The Ivan Petrovych Kotliarevskyi Memorial Estate Museum

Opishnia. The Source of Ukrainian Pottery and Art Nouveau

The Poltava region is famous not only for its Gogol places, the Myrhorod waters and the Sorochyntsi Fair. Thirty kilometres from Poltava lies the world-recognised capital of Ukrainian pottery — the village of Opishnia.

Opishnia. Poltava region. The Museum of the Krychevskyi Family

Petrykivka and Its Wondrous Painting

I had heard many times about Petrykivka painting, but I had never happened to see the decorative folk drawing, neither at exhibitions of applied art nor in souvenir shops.