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The exhibition devoted to the 130th Anniversary since the birth of the artist, our countryman, Professor of Painting Petro Dmytrovych Pokarzhevskiy (1889–1968)

On January 29, 2019, the exhibition At My Art Workshop devoted to the 130^th Anniversary since the birth of the artist-countryman Petro Pokarzhevskiy was developed in the Kirovohrad Regional Art Museum.

Petro Pokarzhevskiy was born on January 29, 1889, in the city of Elisavetgrad into workers family. He studied in the Elisavetgrad Zemstvo Realschule and visited evening drawing classes which were directed by the talented teacher and artist Feodosiy Kozachynskiy.

In 1905 young painter entered the Kiev art school. He graduated it with distinction spending only three years instead of six ones. It entitled him to enter the Academy of Arts without passing examinations. When choosing a workshop he preferred M. Samokish's one because it had good realistic traditions that defined a further career of the artist.

The first personal Pokarzhevskiy’s exhibition, which took place during studying in the Academy, saw portraits, landscapes, etudes, and sketches carried from the Caucasian front of World War I, where the painter was sent along with other students.

In 1917 the young artist was awarded a gold medal for the picture Harnessing (The Three), also he entitled to foreign duty assignment. a foreign business trip. But it failed due to turbulent events which took place in October of the same year.

In 1918 Petro Pokarzhevskiy moved to Tula where he lived for several years working at the Commission on Protection of Art Monuments of the Tula Department of People’s Education. Searching of artworks he had to travel over ancient estates in Tula Governorate. These efforts created the basis for the Tula Art Museum. In 1920–1921 the painter worked as a head of propaganda work in the city of Tula and governorate. In the same period he, along with other artists, took part in the organization of the state art workshops in Tula and became their first head.

Pokarzhevskiy worked as a teacher of painting and the drawing at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute from 1937 to the last day of his life sharing experience with students. He brought up several generations of painters, many masters whose art is widely known.

In the first post-war years, Pokarzhevskiy painted his works in Karelia, northern Russia. In the 1950^th, he traveled a lot: the Pamir, the Caucasus, Lake Baikal, and Crimea. His canvas kept a charm of the untouched area. Traveling abroad, hr created wonderful sceneries of Prague, Sofia, Plovdiv, the Athens, Rome, and Florence…

The artist worked in different genres, but a landscape prevailed in his art. Pokarzhevskiy's landscapes are life drawing etudes, but many of them generalize what was seen in nature and represent the complete artistic image. It gives grounds to relate them to pictures which, at the same time, keep plainness and freshness of an etude...

Petro Pokarzhevskiy died in Moscow, 1968.

His pictures are in many museums of Ukraine and other countries.

Collection of the Kirovohrad Regional Art Museum has over 100 life-drawing and graphic artworks drawn by the artist, and also catalogs, postcards, memoirs, photos which evidence about his life and artistic way. The interesting fact is that the artist himself offered to gift a part of his collection to our museum which was then a gallery of a regional museum of local history.

In 2004, the exhibition devoted to the 115^th Anniversary since the birth of Petro Pokarzhevskiy was opened in the regional art museum. And ten years later, in 2014, the museum organized the exposition Poetic disclosure of the world beauty which was dedicated to 125^th Anniversary since the birth of the artist.

The exposition has artworks from funds of our museum: The Self-portrait (1923), Silver day in Gurzuf (1964), Miners of the Khibiny Mountains (1959), Uzbek with a Horse (1942), and The Still Life (1946). Also, it is supplemented by exhibition catalogs of the artist, a set of postcards with reproductions of artworks, The Artist's Notes memorieswith donative signatures of the author.

 

Tetiana Kostenko, Research Fellow of Picture Gallery of Petro Ossovskyi of the Kirovohrad Regional Art Museum division