Leonid Denysenko

In 1951 [I was] authorized by the Australian Federal Government to head the “Ukraine” pavilion at the International Jubilee Exhibition of Fine and Folk Arts, where during a one-year tour of the Australian continent, two and a half million Australians learned about Ukraine.

Leonid Denysenko

Leonid Denysenko was a Ukrainian-Australian graphic artist, teacher, and inventor of his technique of “literography.”

Leonid Denysenko was born on July 25, 1926, in Warsaw (Poland) into a Ukrainian immigrant family. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (1943) and the Orthodox Theological Seminary (1944) in Warsaw. In 1944 the artist was arrested by the Nazis. The same year, after his release from prison, he joined the U.S. Army as a military artist-illustrator. In 1949 Leonid Denysenko left for Australia. In 1950 Leonid Denysenko began cooperating with the first Ukrainian-Australian journal “Vilna dumka,” as a graphic artist and correspondent. In 1951 Denysenko introduced Ukrainian culture to the continent’s inhabitants, having presented the pavilion “Ukraine” at the International Jubilee Exhibition of Fine Arts and Folk Art. In the same year, the artist became a member of a prestigious art organization, “Royal Art Society,” and in 1967 – one of the co-founders of the Ukrainian Artists Society of Australia. In 1973 he invented his technique – of literography, in which the images (even light-shadow effects) are created only with letters (distinct words and whole phrases). The first artist’s work of such kind was the icon “Christ the Word,” composed of the phrase “God is Love” (in 79 languages). The artist died in 2020. He was buried in Sydney. Leonid Denysenko is known for his works in the field of book graphics (covers and illustrations), bookplates, titles of magazines, caricatures, a series of postage stamps, and samples of Ukrainian greeting cards, calendars, mosaics, and iconostases, monuments, and engravings. All his artworks are made in a realistic manner.