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On the boundary between epochs exhibition devoted to the 105 Anniversary since the birth of the painter Mykola Hnatovych Bondarenko (1914–1999)

On January 9, 2019, the Kirovohrad Regional Art Museum has arranged the exhibition called On the boundary between epochs. It is devoted to 105 Anniversary of the birth of the gifted painter Mykola Bondarenko and serves as a peculiar illustration of his life and artistic heritage.

The painter was born on January, 1914, in the village of Kartushyne, Luhansk Oblast, where his childhood passed. Mykola’s father died in the war therefore he was brought up by her mother. The desire to draw and create beauty encouraged him to enter the Kiev Art Institute in 1931 just after graduating school. However, financial hardship and the mother’s death made him abandon the studying three years later. No wonder, since the entire Ukraine was affected by severe starvation at the time. But any difficulties didn’t stop the future artist on the way to his dreams. So he continued studying in the Grekov Odessa Art School from 1939 to 1940. However, fate said otherwise, Bondarenko was conscripted into the armed force in World War II. After training, he became counter-espionage officer in SMERSH and then took part into the liberation of our native city.

In the years of war he was interested in art and even more – he lived for it, also he worked a lot over himself. In the diary he described a meeting with the wife of the famous artist Skliarov in the village of Zelenyi Kolodets in September 1943: ’’The rural cabin is covered with Repin, Skliarov's originals... Looked through several etudes by Skliarov painted by oil... Some etudes especially were pleasant to me and I decided to acquire them at any cost’’. All the time he tried to escape from military service not to lose the talent. At last, he was released in 1946. Since then he lived and created for our city. Bondarenko was a member of Ukraine’s union of artists and worked at the editorial office of Kirovohrad Truth newspaper.

The painter’s person attracts an interest of people by the fact his oeuvre is a reflection of important historical events, the boundary between epochs. Since art is the first that responds to urgent changes in society. Somewhere the entire picture of past events can be felt through the reception of images, artistic compositions and colour loading owing to the art of painters.

Bondarenko was a mystery man who put important strokes of history on a canvas with a paintbrush by maneuvering and adapting to time. The author of artworks underwent multiple trials during his life: he was born in the years of World War I, passed through the Holodomor of 1932-1933, World War II, post-war time, became the witness of Ukraine’s renaissance and creation of independent Ukrainian state.

His art also changed during his life. At first, he painted in the best tradition of socialist realism–painted portrait of contemporaries, landscapes, thematic and battle artworks. The theme of the Second Word was especially close to him because he personally passed through its hell-fire. Being an officer Mykola Bondarenko saw fear and meanness of command, ruined villages and cities, forsaken bodies of the deceased and he secretly noted seen in the front diary. In the early nineties in the artworks he addressed to historical subjects of the Ukrainian statehood and ethnic motives, venting his love to Ukraine through the art which earlier could be demonstrated only in landscapes singing of picturesque open spaces of Ukrainian lands.

Owing to the artist, his wife Olga Ivanivna and private individuals, the collection of the Kirovohrad regional art museum has over one hundred artworks of Mykola Bondarenko.

“On the boundary between epochs” exposition represents an illustration of the painter’s career. There are landscapes of steppe Ukraine among which the artist grew-up and lived: Way through the Village of Krasnosillia (1974), The Oat Field (1975), The Poplars (1985), Evening comes (1989), Overgrown pond inOnufriivka reserve (1993). A short time ago our city celebrated the Liberation Day from Nazi aggressors, and the picture Liberation of the City of Kirovohrad (1954) tells us as was the case. A specific place in the exhibition is held by artworks with the image of the artist’s family members: Portrait of the Wife Olha (1960) and Portrait of the Son Volodymyr with a Book. Near the portrait of the beloved wife, a visitor can see Mykola Bondarenko himself by looking at Portrait of M.H. Bondarenko (1974) painted by Mykhailo Nadiezhdin, the People’s Painter of Ukraine Mikhail Nadezhdin. Bright professional images of that time The Fisherman (1988), Portrait of the milkmaid Halia Harmash (1974), The Agronomists (1987) and others supplement the exposition.

Reading Bondarenko’s front-line diary again I am convinced of his sincere love for Ukraine which he managed to save in difficult times and carry on through his life waiting for an independent Ukrainian state. So he painted a number of pictures dedicated to it that became a peculiar ode of this event – Death of Ivan Mazepa (1992), Cossack ambush (1995), Ukraine has not yet died (1993, presented in a permanent exhibition). The exhibition is complemented by documentary and print materials.

Having left this world on August 31, 1999, Mykola Hnatovych Bondarenko remained an artistic heritage which reflects boundary between epochs, rises and falls, historical events witnessed by the gifted artist who made an effort to achieve his goal – not to lose the artistic talent – an outlet of that difficult time.

 

Anna Nedlinska, Research Fellow of the Kirovohrad Regional Art Museum Research and Education Work division