Olexa Bulavytsky

I paint the remnants of that life not to idealize it but to remind the younger generations of Ukrainians in Canada and the United States of the phenomenon of survival that every Ukrainian and our nation as a whole has.

Olexa Bulavytsky

Olexa Bulavytsky was a Ukrainian-American artist, landscape painter, and portraitist.

Olexa Bulavytsky was born in 1916 in Uman. He took his first steps in art at the art studio of Mykhailo Yarovy in Kyiv. He studied at the Odesa Art School,  Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and the Kyiv Art Institute (workshops of Oleksandr Fomin and Serhiy Yergykovsky). Before the outbreak of World War II, Bulavytsky worked as a decorator in Kyiv theaters and as a model maker at the Kyiv Film Studio. 

During World War II, he was drafted into the army. The Germans captured him during the battles near Poltava, but Bulavytsky managed to escape and return to occupied Kyiv. In 1943, Olexa and his wife, Nina, an employee of the Museum of St. Sophia Cathedral, decided to emigrate. The Bulavytsky family stayed in the DP camps in Karlsfeld and Berchtesgaden for some time. There, Olexa took an active part in the theatrical and artistic life of the Ukrainian community, creating a series of landscapes, portraits, and still lifes that he exhibited in various European countries.

In 1950, the Bulavytsky family settled in the United States, in Minnesota, which borders the Canadian province of Manitoba. In Minneapolis, the artist worked as a draftsman and designer in architecture companies, gave private painting lessons, and taught at the local Minnetonka Center for the Arts and Education. O. Bulavytsky was an active member of the Ukrainian community, including the Society of Supporters of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Ivan Bahriany Foundation, and the ODUM Friends Society (TOP). He was a member of the Ukrainian Artists’ Association in the USA, Artists Equity, and the Minnesota Artists Association.

In the United States, Bulavytsky began researching the history of the first Ukrainian immigrants. He traveled around Minnesota and sketched abandoned old houses, churches, and yards plein air. This is how a series of realistic Ukrainian architectural landscapes with eloquent titles such as “House in the Sirko Neighborhood” or “Fedoryshyn’s House” was created. The artist found inspiration in maritime themes such as fishing boats, yachts, and lighthouse lamps.

Bulavytsky welcomed the restoration of Ukraine’s independence and visited Kyiv in 1992. In the 1990s, 40 of the artist’s paintings were donated to his homeland, which established the Museum of Ukrainian Diaspora collection.