Ivasiuk, Mykola

Ivasiuk, Mykola [Івасюк, Микола; Ivasjuk], b 28 April 1865 in Zastavna, Bukovyna, d 25 November 1937 in Kyiv. Realist painter. A student of the Vienna (1884–9) and Munich (1890–6) art academies, he organized the first Ukrainian art school in Chernivtsi (1899–1908), then worked in Lviv, Vienna, and Prague. His most important works deal with historical themes: Khmelnytsky at Zboriv (1893), The Battle of Khotyn (1903), Khmelnytsky’s Entry into Kyiv (1912), and Bohun at Berestechko (1919). His painting Khmelnytsky’s Entry into Kyiv became particularly popular in Western Ukraine and thousands of color reproductions of it were printed. He also painted a large number of genre scenes and portraits (of Olha Kobylianska, Yurii Fedkovych, Ivan Franko, Taras Shevchenko, Oleksander Myshuha, and self-portraits). Ivasiuk is a representative of the academic style of the Vienna-Munich school at the end of the 19th century. Themes from the Ukrainian Cossack period, which is prominent in Ivasiuk's work, was popular at the time in Polish and Russian painting. In 1925 he accepted an invitation to teach at the Kyiv State Art Institute and moved to Soviet Ukraine. After working for several years in Kyiv, he was arrested in November 1937 by the NKVD on the wave of the Yezhov terror and executed.

[This article was updated in 2019.]