Lithography

Lithography [літографія; litografiia]. The method of printing a text or drawing from a smooth limestone surface onto paper, invented in 1796 by A. Senefelder in Germany. It was introduced in Ukraine in the 1820s at the art studio of the Kyivan Cave Monastery and private studios in Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, and Mykolaiv. In 1828 the engraving shop at the Mezhyhiria Faience Factory near Kyiv began using lithography to decorate unglazed china (see Porcelain and china industry). The Mykolaiv studio (est 1829) printed navigational charts, manuals, and, later, illustrations. In Odesa the studio of A. Braun (est 1829) ran prints of artistic views of Odesa, Crimea, and other places in Southern Ukraine. In Lviv, lithographs were printed at the studio of J., P., and C. Piller (from 1822), the Ossolineum Institute (1830–4), and the Stauropegion Institute (from 1846). From the 1830s on, lithography studios at Kharkiv University and Kyiv University printed illustrations for textbooks, document collections, albums, and literary almanacs.

In Ukraine the first master lithographers were from Central Europe—L. Kwaas from Saxony, G. Schoenhaldt from Switzerland, and A. Braun, I. Walner, J. Piller, and A. Lange from various German lands. They produced lithographs of their own drawings and of works by Ukrainian artists. In the first half of the 19th century lithography was mastered by Ukrainian artists (eg I. Vendzylovych and S. Vozniak in Galicia). In the second half significant achievements in lithography were attained by Kostiantyn Trutovsky, Opanas Slastion, and Mykola I. Murashko. The notable lithography workshops existed at the Kyivan Cave Monastery Press, which printed large runs of landscapes of this ancient site and other churches in Kyiv, as well as oleographed icons, and at the printery of S. Kulzhenko, which issued both religious and secular lithographs. In the 20th century, lithography played an important role in book illustration and poster art as well as flourishing in its own right as a graphic art. Notable 20th-century Ukrainian lithographers are Slastion, Mykhailo Zhuk, Ivan Padalka, Volodymyr Zauze, Oleksander Dovhal, Vasyl Kasiian, Vasyl Myronenko, Mykhailo Derehus, Havrylo Pustoviit, Hryhorii Bondarenko, Vsevolod Averin, V. Parchevsky, Viktor Savin, Yefrem Svitlychny, Oleksander Liubymsky, and A. Nasedkin.

(For a bibliography, see Graphic art.)

Dmytro Stepovyk

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]