Krychevsky. Sayenko. Master and student

The exhibition is dedicated to two prominent Ukrainians ‒ the great visionary of Ukrainian culture Vasyl Krychevsky and his talented follower Oleksandr Sayenko, the founder of the Ukrainian Art Nouveau style and a representative of the Krychevsky school.

The exhibition presents ornaments, interior sketches, samples of book graphics and watercolors by Vasyl Krychevsky from the collections of the Museum of the Ukrainian Diaspora and the Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine. In a dialogue with the master’s works, the exhibition presents the works of Oleksandr Sayenko from the period of his studies at the Myrhorod Art and Industrial Institute (1919) and the Kyiv Art Institute (1920-1928), which clearly reflect the main  principles of the outstanding teacher: the desire to synthesize folk and professional art, the author’s interpretation of ancient ornaments.

The exhibition focuses on Vasyl Krychevskyi’s design project for the Historical Section of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1928), to which he also involved his student.

For the first time, educational compositions created by Krychevsky for students, as well as his graphic works of the 1920s and 1930s from the private collection of Nina Sayenko, are on display.

“The exhibition tells us about the persistence Krychevsky’s tradition,” says the curator of the exhibition, art historian Oksana Pidsukha. “The Soviet empire tried to destroy the ideas that were crucial for national identity, along with their followers and even the memory of them. So the story of the master and his faithful student is extremely precious.”

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