Petro Kravchenko was one of the first Ukrainian Australian ‘ambassadors’ to establish ties with his homeland after the restoration of independence and visit his native Kyiv. While living in Australia, he made great efforts to develop Ukrainian cultural life there, and when he was able to visit free Ukraine, he tirelessly built cultural bridges between the two countries. It was Kravchenko who opened up to Ukraine the art of our compatriots who emigrated to Australia after World War II.
Oksana Pidsukha, art historian
Petro Kravchenko was a Ukrainian-Australian artist, theater set designer, public figure, and co-founder of the Ukrainian Artists Society of Australia.
The artist was born on June 21, 1921 in Kyiv. In 1940, he graduated from the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv Art School (teacher ─ K. Yeleva) and dreamed of connecting his life with cinema. Still, with the outbreak of World War II, he was mobilized into the Soviet army. In 1941, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He stayed in Munich after the war and emigrated to Australia on the SS Castel Bianco ship in 1949. Under a labor contract, he worked for two years at a brick factory. The artist graduated from the Film Television and Radio School (1955) and the CATC Design School (1958) in Australia. In 1967, he became one of the co-founders and secretary of the Ukrainian Artists Society of Australia (UASA). He worked at the Australian state television studio CH-2 for about twenty years as a “prop designer.” After Ukraine gained independence, the artist established cultural cooperation between Sydney and Kyiv, visited his homeland, and donated artworks by Ukrainian Australians to museum collections. The artist died on November 27, 2009. Today, his son Pavlo Kravchenko continues his father’s work.
