Oksana Semenik - Ukrainian Artists Labelled as ‘Russian’ -Decolonizing American and European Museums

Today I’m speaking with Oksana Semenik - Art Historian and Journalist from Ukraine. She has created an engaging Twitter account, called Ukrainian Art History (@ukr_arthistory), which focuses on topics that include Decolonizing American and European museums – particularly, Ukrainian art and artists that have been labelled as ‘Russian’.
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Ukrainian Art History
https://twitter.com/ukr_arthistory
@ukr_arthistory
'Ukrainian Art History' by Oksana Semenik, art historian and journalist from Ukraine. DM for personal contact | Decolonizing American and European museums.
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Arkhyp Kuindzhi (1841-1910)
1~ Moonlight Night on the Dnipro (1880)
2~ & 3~ Arkhyp Kuindzhi
In March 2022, the Kuindzhi Art Museum was destroyed during the Russian
invasion of Ukraine and the siege of Mariupol.
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Tetyana Yablonska (1917-2005)
4~ Wedding (1963)
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Benjamin Rosenberg, born 1884 in Kamyanets Podilsk
His family chose to immigrate to the United States in 1899 and he
grew up in New York City.
5~ Cowboy and horse (1917)
6~ Dice Game (from The Whitney Museum)
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Olexandr Bohomazov (1880-1930)
7~ Waterfall near Imatra, Finland (1911)
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Veniamin Kushnir (1926-1992)
From Khmelnytsky region. He lived and worked in Dnipro, Lviv, and
Kyiv. But most of his paintings were made in the Carpathian mountains.
He was part of a Ukrainian art movement, called the Sixties.
8~ On a Stream (1972)
9~ Mothers (1972)
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Kazimir Malevich
"…Day after day, we [with Leo Kvachevskyy] walked together to sketch
during summer, spring, and winter. Arguing and talking all the time.
Mentioning Ukraine. He, like me, was Ukrainian."
– Kazimir Malevich, from his autobiography.
From 1919-1922 he was teaching in Vitebsk art school in Belarus.
He lived for 25 years in Russia. Even less than in Ukraine.
In the fall of 1930, during an interrogation by Chekists in Leningrad,
Kazimir Malevich said his nationality is Ukrainian.
10~ Presentiment
11~ Landscape with white house
12~ Kazimir Malevich
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William Kurelek (1927 -1977)
Ukrainian-Canadian artist. Born in Canada, but his family emigrated
from Bukovina, Ukraine.
13~ William Kurelek
14~ Crossection in Vinnitsya, 1939
This work shows the massacre by Stalin when thousands of Ukrainian
were killed during the Great Purge in 1937-1938. It was typical for
the soviet government to make parks on the territories of mass graves.
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Oleksandra Exter (1882-1949)
Born into a Jewish family in Poland and moved to Ukraine in 1885 when
she was three years old. Because of the seizure of power by the
Bolsheviks, she emigrated to Paris in 1924.
15~ Oleksandra Exter
16~ Oleksandra Exter
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David Burliuk (born 1882)
"My color is deeply national. Yellow-hot, green-yellow, red, and blue
tones beat Niagaras from under my brush", he said.
17~ Ukrainians (1912)
18~ Time (1910)
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Maria Prymachenko (1909-1997)
Born and lived in Bolotnya, Kyiv region.
She is considered a 'primitive' artist but genuinely a modernist.
This spring, russian occupants destroyed The Ivankiv Museum, with the
reported loss of 25 of Prymachenko's works. However, local people
were able to save 14 of Prymachenko's works from the fire.
19~ Our army, our protectors
20~ Flowers grew around the fourth block (1990)
21~ Nuclear war is damned (1976)
22~ Destroyed museum in Ivankiv - 2023
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Yaroslava Muzyka (1894-1973)
Worked in various genres - from painting to mosaics.
But she also risked her life to preserve the works of the Boychukists,
which were being destroyed by the Soviet authorities. The story of a #
brave artist who went through Soviet camps.
23~ Yaroslava Muzyka
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Illya Repin or Rypin (1844–1930)
A Ukrainian artist. He was from the Cossack family with the nickname
Ripa, which means 'turnip'. Rypin was born in Chuguiv, Kharkiv region,
which was one of many old cossacks villages, called 'Sloboda'.
In one of his last letters Illya Repin wrote: "kind, dear compatriots...
I ask you to believe in the sense of my devotion and endless regret
that I can't move to live in a sweet, joyful Ukraine...
Loving you from childhood.
24~ Ukrainian Woman (1876)
25~ Hopack (1926 - unfinished work)
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John Wenger (1887-1976)
Born in Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine.
Painting from 3 years old and educated at Odesa Art Academy (1900-1903).
26~ John Wenger
27~ John Wenger
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28~ Illya Repin, They Did Not Expect Him (1884-88)
29~ Illya Repin, Zaporozhian Cossacks write to the Sultan of Turkey (1844–1930)
30~ Arkhyp Kuindzhi
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