Muzyka, Yaroslava

Muzyka, Yaroslava [Музика, Ярослава; née Stefanovych], b 10 January 1898 in Zalistsi, Zboriv county, Galicia, d 24 November 1973 in Lviv. Painter, graphic artist, and restorer; wife of Maksym Muzyka and niece of Solomia Krushelnytska. She studied painting under S. Batowski in Lviv, restoration under Mykola Kasperovych in Kyiv and Ihor Hrabar in Moscow, and in Paris (1935). An icon restorer at the National Museum from 1928 and a founding member of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists in interwar Lviv, she was best known for her book graphics, bookplates, and iconlike engravings. She painted still lifes, portraits, such as Princess Olha (1925), Hutsul with a Pipe (1928), Portrait of a Woman (1933), and Beatrice (1968), and paintings on glass, such as Shepherdess and Anna Yaroslavna (1965–8); produced over 350 prints, including the series ‘Creatures’ (1932–65), ‘Nature’ (1958–61), and ‘Hryhorii Skovoroda’s Symbols’ (1972); and created glass bowls, enamel portraits of Taras Shevchenko and Lesia Ukrainka, the enamel series ‘Hutsul Folk Beliefs,’ and the mosaic Princess Olha (1968). After the Second World War she was deported to Kazakhstan, and spent eight years there. Her works were exhibited in Lviv, Prague, Berlin, Chicago, Naples, and Los Angeles. A catalog of her last show in Lviv was published in 1968. Muzyka bequeathed her valuable collection of folk art and her own works to the Lviv Art Gallery.

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