Sahaidachny, Yevhen

Sahaidachny, Yevhen [Сагайдачний, Євген; Sahajdačnyj, Jevhen], b 22 June 1886 in Kherson, d 21 August 1961 in Kosiv, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. Painter, scenery designer, and teacher. He was educated in Saint Petersburg where he belonged to the avant-garde art goups Wreath (led by Davyd Burliuk) and Triangle (led by Nikolai Kulbin). In 1909 he became one of the leading members of the Union of Youth artists association and took part in the group’s exhibitions in Saint Petersburg and Riga. In 1911 he traveled to Lviv to work with Mykhailo Boichuk who had a powerful influence on Sahaidachny’s development as an artist. Upon his return to Russia in 1912, Sahaidachny exhibited his paintings with the group of leftists avant-garde painters The Donkey’s Tail and worked as a designer for Saint Petersburg theaters. He continued to work on stage design in Kyiv after moving to the city in 1917. In 1917 he became a member of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts, and from 1922 he lectured at the Kyiv State Art Institute, the Mezhyhiria Ceramics Tekhnikum, the arts and crafts school in Myrhorod, the Luhansk Workers' Faculty of Art (1932–6), and the Dnipropetrovsk Art Tekhnikum. He was a member of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine. After the Second World War Sahaidachny moved to Chernivtsi and, in 1947, to Kosiv where he taught at the Kosiv School of Applied Art. His works include the decorative mural Wedding (1911); numerous landscapes, such as Lanes in Turkey (1912) and Gullies near Luhansk (1930s), and cityscapes, such as The Street (early 1920s); and many genre paintings, such as The Bandura Player (early 1920s). After 1947, many of his paitings were devoted to the Hutsul region and the Hutsuls. He amassed a large collection of folk art, particularly of the Hutsuls. A posthumous exhibition of his paintings took place in Lviv in 1969.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kravchenko, Iaroslav. Shkola Mykhaila Boichuka. Trydttsiat sim imen (Kyiv 2010)

Marko Robert Stech

[This article was updated in 2012.]