Soshenko, Ivan

Soshenko, Ivan [Сошенко, Іван; Sošenko], b 2 June 1807 in Bohuslav, Kaniv county, Kyiv gubernia, d 18 July 1876 in Korsun, Kaniv county. Painter. After studying at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts (1834–8) he taught painting in gymnasiums in Nizhyn (1839–46), Nemyriv (1846–56), and Kyiv. He painted portraits, such as Portrait of M. Chaly's Grandmother and Woman's Portrait; genre scenes, such as Hay Selling by the Dnieper and Boys Fishing (1857); landscapes; and icons. In 1835 he introduced Taras Shevchenko to Yevhen Hrebinka, Vasilii Zhukovsky, Karl Briullov, and A. Venetsianov, and in 1838 he helped to purchase Shevchenko's freedom and to place him in the Saint Petersburg Academy. Mykhailo Chaly's biography of Soshenko was published in Kyiv in 1876.

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