Keivan, Ivan

Keivan, Ivan [Кейван, Іван; Kejvan] (Keywan), b 16 September 1907 in Karliv, Sniatyn county, Galicia, d 18 September 1992 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Painter, graphic artist, and art scholar. Completing his studies at the Novakivsky Art School in Lviv (1927–8) and the Cracow (1928–9) and Warsaw (1932–7) academies of fine arts, he taught art at the Ukrainian gymnasium in Kolomyia and after the Second World War at Ukrainian schools in the displaced persons camps in Germany. From 1949 he lived in Edmonton, Canada, where he helped found the Ukrainian Association of Artists. He did a series of large portraits—which included depictions of Ivan Franko, Teodosii Osmachka, Vadym Lesych, and the artist's wife—and a self-portrait. His publications include many articles and a number of monographs: Taras Shevchenko—obrazotvorchyi mystets’ (Taras Shevchenko as a Plastic Artist, 1964), Volodymyr Sichyns’kyi (1957), Dmytro Antonovych (1966), Ukraïns'ke obrazotvorche mystetstvo (Ukrainian Fine Arts, 1984), and Ukraïns'ki mysttsi poza bat'kivshchynoiu (Ukrainian Artists Outside the Homeland, 1996). His oil paintings and graphic art works were exhibited in Lviv, Warsaw, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam, and various cities in Canada and the United States.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]