Gregor Kruk returns to Ukraine

An exposition of 25 works by the ethnic Ukrainian sculptor Gregor Kruk was an important and necessary creative comeback at the Ukrainian collective consciousness that forces this consciousness to come to its senses and start acting. The sculptural composition “Female Images Created by Gregor Kruk,” placed beside an impressive display of contemporary wood sculptures, was part of the Great Sculpture Exhibition that opened at the Ukrainian home for the fourth time.

This Great Sculpture Exhibition is meant to feature internationally recognized artists and display a variety of contemporary Ukrainian sculptures. This project has allowed Ukrainian art devotees to admire masterpieces by Rodin, Dali, Aleksandra Ekster, and a number of other renowned masters. This time the Ukrainian Home starred Gregor Kruk and Demetre Chiparus, both artists being valued by Ukrainian art lovers in their separate ways.

ART DECO

Demetre Chiparus’s sculptures reflect the art deco style that was in vogue back in the 1920s in Europe. In the 1970s art collectors gave the style a second youth. In fact, art deco works have since kept selling for increasingly higher prices at world auctions. According to press reports, Chiparus’s Shiva (also displayed at the Ukrainian Home) was sold at Sotheby’s for a record 500,000 USD in December 2006. It had been sold for a sum ten times smaller 25 years ago. Demetre Chiparus, the author of Shiva and many other sculptures displayed in a separate exhibition hall of the Ukrainian Home in Kyiv, was born in Romania but spent most of his life in the West European art center, Paris. He is primarily known for his combination of bronze/gold and ivory that came be to known as the chryselephantine technique. It allowed him to create ideal East European images, inspired by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, which made Europe feel nostalgic about its east in the 1910s. Alberto Shayo, a researcher of Chiparus’s creative heritage, wrote: “Paris in the 1920s, during the controversial period between the two world wars, was filled with avant-garde music, dancing, and art distancing themselves from academic cliches. The way people lived at the time, bursting with creative energy, is reflected in Demetre Chiparus’s sculptures.”

A TALENTED UKRAINIAN’S CHERISHED DREAM

The Female Images display is a different story altogether, for several reasons. The artist, Gregor Kruk, is one the world’s best-known sculptors, and represents a different technique and image-making style.

To begin with, this is the first Kruk exhibit in the land of his forefathers.

Second, the works of art on display are part of the collection of the Ukrainian Library and Taras Shevchenko Archives in London.

The very existence of this library may take quite a few Ukrainians by surprise. According to Ludmila Pekarska, the curator, the London Library’s stock includes both books and artistic archives. The latter include paintings, icons, sculptures, and philately items. The archives also contain unique documents, such as correspondence between the then noted expert on Ukrainian folk art, archaeology and museums Danylo Shcherbakivsky and his brother Vadym who lived in the West [i.e., Western Europe — Ed.] and worked first for the University of Prague and later for those of Munich and London.

The Gregor Kruk collection numbers some forty sculptures that were sold in 1985, during the artist’s lifetime. Ludmila Pekarska, in her article for the journal ART Ukraine, offers a detailed account of Gregor Kruk’s life and creative endeavors. She describes his style as the result of a combination of “traditions cultivated by the celebrated European [art] schools… profound Ukrainian folk creative background… and academic professionalism.”

Gregor Kruk was born in 1911, in Bratyshiv, a village in what is now Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. After studying in Lviv, he found himself enrolled in the Krakow Academy of Arts, and later the Berlin Academy of Arts, thanks to Dr. Bohdan Lepky. Still later he settled in Munich. Pekarska provides examples from Kruk’s unique life experiences, including his meeting with Pavlo Skoropadsky’s daughter Elizabeth. She talked her father into commissioning Kruk to make Skoropadsky’s sculptural portrait. After the sculpture was ready, the young fellow was invited to a reception at Skoropadsky’s estate. Kruk had created over 300 sculptures and thousands of paintings/drawings before his death in Munich, in 1988.

“Ukraine was what kept him alive, it was his stimulus and inspiration. His works are a contribution to the world’s creative treasure-trove precisely because they reflect the Ukrainian spirit. Bringing Kruk back to Ukraine, even if just for a few days, is of great importance. He was one of the gifted sons of Ukraine who made his name by creating works of art. He never concealed his Ukrainian origin and national identity. His name should certainly be added to those on the Golden List of Ukrainian Names,” says Ludmila Pekarska.

Says Fedir Kurlak, Chief Executive, Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain: “Gregor Kruk dreamed of having his sculptures displayed in Ukraine some day. His dream has come true, but the artist, regrettably, never lived to see it.”

Two weeks from now the Kruk exhibit will be transferred from Kyiv to Lviv, closer to the artist’s homeland in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. Borys Voznytsky, the curator of the Lviv Art Gallery, says they have four small-size works by Kruk, but these, of course, can hardly serve to reflect the artist’s creative heritage.

Next year will mark Gregor Kruk’s birth centennial. The Ukrainian Home promises to arrange for an even larger exhibit and the Ukrainian Library in London appears to be considering the possibility of presenting one of his sculptures to Ukraine. Of course, transferring his works to Ukraine isn’t as important as reviving his image in Ukraine’s collective consciousness. The fact remains that few are aware of his name and meaning in Ukraine today. For as long as the Ukrainian community at home fails to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, including the names of all those gifted Ukrainians persecuted, arrested, and left to die in Soviet prison camps, any attempt to build a true Ukrainian nation-state will fail. Gregor Kruk’s comeback is just a creative step taken in this direction, aimed at restoring national identity.

Nor will this Ukrainian puzzle be complete without domestic sculptors touring domestic and world art markets. This is precisely the reason why the Great Sculpture Exhibition features works by contemporary artists every year. Moreover, these works are increasingly sought after. This time the Ukrainian Home displayed the works of 40 sculptors.

UNDERPINNING PRINCIPLE UNCHANGED

The central part of the exhibition space was allocated for contemporary Ukrainian wood sculpture (by Mykola Stepanov, Mykola Kryvenko, Mykola Malyshko, Oleksandr and Tamara Babak, Oleksandr Ridny). Their wood sculpting emphasis is fully justified, their works range from striking authentic philosophical images of Mykola Stepanov to Mykola Malyshko’s ethnic avant-garde approach. All boils down to energy-intensive wood sculptural images that live a life of their own because they are rooted in folk creative tradition, thus producing an overwhelming artistic effect.

Says Oleksandr RIDNY: “Wood sculpture produces more than a visual effect; man has long used it as a medicine. This kind of sculpture exudes an energy of sorts. Given today’s conditions, I would describe it as sacral, for it appears to have a greater effect on man than bronze.”

Mykola Stepanov’s exposition is the largest on display and perhaps the most captivating. The sculptor died in 2003 and his son, Klym STEPANOV, is following in his father’s footsteps.

“Doubtlessly, there is some special living energy in the wood material. My father was keenly aware of it. He loved wood [as material for his sculptures]. I share his affection, although I lack much of my father’s industriousness. He kept experimenting, looking for new sculpting techniques, but he mainly relied on the folk sculpting tradition and remained faithful to it,” says Klym Stepanov.

I can only add that Gregor Kruk did, too.

GOOD NEWS IN CONCLUSION

The journal ART Ukraine, published by the Ukrainian Home, will have an English-language quarterly. Natalia Zabolotna says the first quarterly was flown to NYC to be launched at the renowned art fair, to help integrate Ukrainian artists into the international creative realm.

Another important positive news is that the newly elected President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine has sent a message of greetings to the Great Sculpture Exhibition, thus giving his blessing to the Ukrainian Home’s creative initiatives. A very positive signal [from the new administration] for the start of the calendar spring in Ukraine, which appears to have begun in Ukraine on a high artistic note despite the usual political slush.