How can one become a well-known graphic artist?

This publication is on the oeuvre of a prominent Ukrainian graphic artist and illustrator. The album was designed by the artist Mykola Shtok, while Hryhorii Bondarenko’s friends and pupils traced his life story grain by grain, using the reminiscences of Vitalii Kulykov, Vitalii Lenchyn, Lada Miliaieva, Oleksii Skrypiliov (Bondarenko’s grandson), and some of his other colleagues.

The master’s oeuvre comprised both traditional and avant-garde concepts, academism went hand in hand with improvisation, and all this made it possible to create original works. Some of his works show the influence of modernism, particularly, cubism. Bondarenko also applied such graphic techniques as printing and, especially, autolitography, where he often used “Rembrandt lighting.” The artist studied ancient stone-carving techniques, liked to draw on kornpapier, illustrated books and magazines, and, later, took to drawing postcards (he created a huge number of these unique items). You can find in the album practically all the genres, styles, and methods which Bondarenko used in all his lifetime.

According to gallery deputy director Maryna Konieva, it is the master’s pupil Vitalii Kulykov who hit upon the idea of making the album. “Our gallery presented Kulykov’s album a few years ago. He was sorry that a book about him, not about his mentor, had come out. He said he intended to do his best to redress the injustice,” Konieva says. Very much was done to have an album on Bondarenko’s oeuvre published, but, unfortunately, Kulykov did not live to see this moment. Volodymyr Yaskov writes that “those who put this dream into practice after his [Kulykov’s. – Ed.] death have every reason to consider this album a tribute not only to the memory of a superb and shamefully little-known artist, but also to his pupils’ devotion which, as a professional, social, psychological, and cultural phenomenon, has miraculously survived to this day.”