Osinchuk, Mykhailo

Osinchuk, Mykhailo [Осінчук, Михайло; Osinčuk, Myxajlo], b 16 September 1890 in Holoshyntsi, Zbarazh county, Galicia, d 13 February 1969 in New York. Painter and graphic artist; member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society; brother of Roman Osinchuk. A graduate of the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts and Cracow University (1914), he taught drawing at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv (1921–6) and painted the murals in over 20 Galician churches (some with Pavlo Kovzhun) and 10 iconostases in the Neo-Byzantine style. He was a founding member and the first president of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists and coedited its organ Mystetstvo (Lviv). His book illustrations, woodcuts, and bookplates were similar in style to icons. During the Second World War he was a professor at the Academy of Arts in Lviv and president of the Labor Association of Ukrainian Pictorial Artists. A postwar displaced person and émigré, from 1947 he lived in the United States, where he painted 4 Ukrainian churches and 10 iconostases. He also painted two churches in Toronto. He was an honorary member of the Ukrainian Artists' Association in the USA. He wrote several art monographs, including one on the icon.

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