The master’s heritage

The Andrei Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv presents an exhibition dedicated to the 100th birth anniversary of the Ukrainian-American painter, printmaker, ceramist, and art historian. It features the artwork of Jacques Hnizdovsky (born Yakiv Hnizdovsky in Pylypche, near Ternopil, January 27, 1915 – died November 8, 1985, in New York, buried at the Lychakiv Cemetery, Lviv) assembled from the museum funds of Lviv National Museum, National Art Museum in Kyiv, Borshchiv Regional Local History Museum, and various private collections.

 The artist used tempera, oil paint, and various solid dyes for paintings, engraved on wood and metal, and occasionally engaged in small-scale sculpturing. His heritage encompasses hundreds of paintings, as well as more than three hundred prints (woodcuts, etchings, and linocuts). Winter Landscape and Sunflower by Hnizdovsky decorated the President’s office of J. F. Kennedy in the White House. Many private collections and museums keep his works of art, namely, in the US: the Library of Congress, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Delaware State University, University of Washington, the Butler Institute of American Art, Woodward’s Foundation, Nelson Rockefeller Collection; some of his drawings are also owned by Japanese museums. Hnizdovsky’s works are still exhibited and published as book illustrations. His archives are housed in the Slavic Division of the New York Public Library.

 In 1990, 5 years since Hnizdovsky’s death, his widow presented several of the artist’s works to museums in Kyiv, Lviv, and Ternopil. Later, some of the pieces of art by him were transferred to Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi museums. In 2005 Stephania Hnizdovsky brought the bust of Jacques Hnizdovsky, made by Leo Mol, as a gift to Lviv National Museum.