Petro Kapshuchenko. 1940s (?). From the book: Fedoruk O. Plastics of Petro Kapshuchenko. Kyiv ⎼ New York: M. P. Kots Publishing House, 2004.
I was sent off to compulsory work in Germany. […] Later, there was a DP camp in Regensburg, where my stage designer qualification was required. And it was in Regensburg that I got seriously engaged in sculpture.
Petro Kapshuchenko
Petro Kapshuchenko was a Ukrainian, Argentinean, and American sculptor, author of the monuments to Princess Olga and Metropolitan Vasyl (Lypkivsky) in South Bound Brook (USA), as well as numerous sculptural miniatures on Ukrainian historical themes.
The sculptor was born on September 27, 1915, in the village of Sukhachivka (the territory of the city of Dnipro). He got his education at Dnipropetrovsk Art School (1935–1940). During the Second World War, Kapshuchenko was sent off to Germany by the Occupation authorities for compulsory work. Upon the war’s end, he stayed at the DP camp in Regensburg. In 1949 Kapshuchenko, his wife Zoya, and his daughter Liudmyla emigrated to Argentina, where he took the artistic pseudonym Pedro Enko. In May 1961, the sculptor was elected the Honorary Member of the Free Humanitarian University in Buenos Aires. In 1963 the Kapshuchenko family moved to the United States. The artist gave courses in sculpture and ceramics at an art studio in Philadelphia; he joined the Ukrainian Artists’s Association in USA. When Ukraine gained its independence, Kapshuchenko visited his native country several times and donated some of his works to museum collections. He died on November 17, 2006, in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. He is buried at St. Andrew’s Ukrainian cemetery in South Bound Brook. Kapshuchenko created over 7,000 miniature sculptures, portraits, and monumental memorials, mainly featuring historical and everyday subjects.
