Rokytsky, Mykola

Rokytsky, Mykola [Рокицький, Микола; Rokyc’kyj], b 19 April 1901 in Zarichia, Kovel county, Volhynia gubernia, d 11 February 1944 in Kyiv. Painter and designer. In 1927 he graduated from the Kyiv State Art Institute, where he studied under Mykhailo Boichuk. In the 1920s he was a member of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine. His easel paintings include By the Apple Tree (1928), the cycle ‘Blast Furnace Shop’ (1929), and Defense of Luhansk (1932). He is best known for his frescoes, such as Shift Change at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1927) and Harvest Celebration (with Oleksandr Myzin) at the Peasant Sanatorium in Odesa (1928). His early works were influenced by postimpressionist trends. He was accused of formalism and stylization by Stalinist critics, and in the 1930s he painted socialist-realist works, such as Funeral of a Comrade in Arms (1935), and designed tapestries and kilims.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]