Soroka, Bohdan

Soroka, Bohdan [Сорока, Богдан], b 2 September 1940 in Lviv, d 9 April 2015 in Lviv. Graphic artist and painter; son of Mykhailo Soroka and Kateryna Zarytska. A graduate of the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Art (1964), since the 1960s he has created imaginative, often expressionistic, line engravings and bookplates. His print series ‘Folkloric Motifs’ (1969), ‘Slavic Mythology’ (1970–2), ‘Children’s Games’ (1974), ‘Kupalo Festival Games’ (1974), ‘Proverbs’ (1976), and ‘March of the Gnomes’ (1979–84) reveal his fascination with Ukrainian folklore. Soroka has also engraved prints depicting the old architecture (particularly churches) of Lviv, Drohobych, and Zhovkva and the series ‘Symbols of Hryhorii Skovoroda’ (1975), ‘Travels in Uzbekistan’ (1981–2), and ‘Stations of the Cross’ (1990); created graphic illustrations to works by Ihor Kalynets, Lesia Ukrainka, Roman Ivanychuk, Vasyl Stefanyk, and Taras Shevchenko; and painted large-scale decorative murals in Lviv, including one inside the Quality Building and the large composition Musicians, on the ceiling of the former Carmelite Sisters’ church. Solo exhibitions of his works have been held in Lviv (1983, 1989), Kyiv (1987, 1990), and Toronto, Ottawa, and Edmonton (1991). A book of Soroka’s memoirs was published in Lviv in 2014.

[This article was updated in 2016.]