Sobachko-Shostak, Hanna

Sobachko-Shostak, Hanna [Собачко-Шостак, Ганна; Sobačko-Šostak], b 15 December 1883 in Skoptsi (now Veselynivka), Pereiaslav county, Poltava gubernia, d 3 December 1965 in Cherkizovo, Moscow oblast. Master of primitive art and folk decorative painting. In 1910 she began painting embroidery and kilim patterns in A. Semigradova and Ye. Prybylska's folk-art workshop in Skoptsi. From 1932 she lived in exile in Cherkizovo and designed embroidery patterns for the local cloth factory. Her decorative paintings, with floral and faunal motifs, are distinguished by their dynamic composition, asymmetry, and use of intense colors. Sobachko's work was exhibited in Kyiv (1913, 1919, 1963, 1965), Saint Petersburg (1913), Moscow (1915, 1927, 1936), Paris (1913, 1937), Berlin (1914, 1922), and New York (1939). A book about her by H. Miestiechkin was published in Kyiv in 1965.

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