Shovkunenko, Oleksii

Shovkunenko, Oleksii [Шовкуненко, Олексій; Šovkunenko, Oleksij], b 21 March 1884 in Kherson, d 12 March 1974 in Kyiv. Painter and educator; full member of the USSR Academy of Arts from 1947. A graduate of the Odesa Art School (1908) and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts (1917), he took part in the exhibitions of the Society of South Russian Artists (1913–19) and was a member of the Kostandi Society of Artists (1924–9). He taught at the Odesa Art Polytechnic (1926–9) and Odesa Art Institute (1929–35) and at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1936–63). He painted portraits, including ones of prominent Ukrainian cultural figures, such as Yurii Yanovsky, Pavlo Tychyna (Portrait of Pavlo Tychyna, 1949), Maksym Rylsky (Portrait of Maksym Rylsky, 1945), Ivan Le (Portrait of Ivan Le, 1943), Leonid Pervomaisky (Portrait of Leonid Pervomaisky, 1943), Mariia Lytvynenko-Volgemut, Volodymyr Zabolotny, Nataliia Uzhvii (Portrait of Nataliia Uzhvii, 1947), Mykhailo Lysenko (Portrait of Mykhailo Lysenko, 1947), and Oleksader Bohomolets (Portrait of Oleksander Bohomolets, 1945), and many natural, urban, and industrial landscapes of Ukraine (such as Flood in Koncha Zaspa, 1954), Caucasia, Moscow (such as Moscow. Artillery on a Bridge, 1943), the Urals, Moldavia (such as Moldavia. Strointsy Village, 1936), and Bashkiria, including series (painted in the style of socialist realism) depicting the Odesa shipyard (1925–35) and the construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station (1930–2) (such as The Construction of the Dniprohes, 1931). For the latter series he was awarded the grand prize at the Art and Technology in Contemporary Life Exhibition in Paris (1937). A volume of recollections about Shovkunenko was published in 1980, and Leonid Vladych's books about him appeared in 1960 and 1983.

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