.png)
Anatol Petrytskyi
avant-garde artist, scenographer, painter, one of the founders of Ukrainian scenography.
Anatol Petrytskyi (1895-1964) established a new role for the artist in the theatre as a co-creator of the director's idea. In his works, he harmoniously combined elements of traditional Ukrainian culture with contemporary artistic trends.
The artist developed his own unique artistic style and made a real revolution in the field of stage space organisation and theatre costume design.
Petrytskyi was one of the founders of the futuristic New Generation organisation (1927), served as chief artist of the Young Theatre, the Taras Shevchenko State Drama Theatre, and the Ukrainian Music Drama in Kyiv, and participated in the Venice Biennale in 1930.
Artworks
Biography
EDUCATION
1915-1917
1917-1919
1919-1931
1931-1955
Exhibitions
In 1912, Anatol Petrytskyi graduated from a two-year railway school and entered the Kyiv Art School. At the final stage of his studies, he opposed academicism, defending the right to an independent and free approach to painting. In 1913, Petrytskyi attended the school of Mykola Murashko, where he got the opportunity to express himself creatively, improved his skills in drawing, composition, colour and light.
One of Petrytskyi's first works was the design of charity folk festivals at the Kyiv Syrets Hippodrome. As an assistant to Vasyl Krychevskyi, Petrytskyi created several panels in a decorative style. In particular, the panel ‘Brutus Playing the Bandura Near Caesar's Corpse’ was used to decorate the theatre where Mykola Sadovskyi's troupe performed. Petrytskyi depicted Brutus and the Roman senators as Cossacks. Petrytskyi's interest in Ukrainian folk art was strengthened by his communication with Vasyl Krychevskyi and his acquaintance with Danylo Shcherbakivskyi.
After graduating in 1917, the artist designed the stage space of the Grotesque and House of Interludes theatres in Kyiv.
As a stage designer, Anatol Petrytskyi fully revealed his talent in collaboration with Les Kurbas at the Young Theatre in Kyiv (1917-1919). They met in the Kyiv cafe H.L.A.M., which at that time was a centre for creative and talented individuals. Petrytskyi and Kurbas had a close friendship, but they often discussed art and philosophical issues. One of the portraits created by Petrytskyi is dedicated to Kurbas: the director is depicted in thought, surrounded by books that seem to become his real interlocutors.
His scenography boldly destroyed the traditional proportions and canons of realistic art.Anatol Petrytskyi acted as an equal co-creator of the performance with the director.
The artist also designed performances at the Young Theatre: ‘Doctor Kerzhentsev’ based on the play by Leonid Andreev, directed by Hnat Yura (1917), ’Theatre of O. Oles's Theatre’ based on dramatic sketches by Oleksandr Oles, directed by Les Kurbas and Hnat Yura (1917), “Woe to the Liar” based on the play by Franz Grilpartzler, directed by Les Kurbas (1918), “Oedipus the King” based on Sophocles, directed by Les Kurbas (1918), ‘The Drowned Bell by Gerhart Hauptmann, directed by Hnat Yura (1918), Candide by Bernard Shaw, directed by Hnat Yura (1918), The Christmas Nativity Scene, directed by Les Kurbas (1919), Tartuffe by Moliere, directed by Valeriy Vasyliev (1919). Later, Les Kurbas said about Anatol Petrytskyi: ‘An artist appeared in the Ukrainian theatre exactly when Anatol Petrytskyi came to the Young Theatre.’
In 1919, Kurbas, as part of an initiative group, founded the Ukrainian Musical Drama: the first Ukrainian opera theatre. Stepan Bondarchuk became the theatre's organiser and director, and Les Kurbas and Mykhailo Bonch-Tomashevsky were its directors. In the early summer of 1919, Kurbas was preparing a production of Lysenko's opera Taras Bulba. The date of the premiere was set, but Denikin's troops broke into Kyiv. The fire destroyed Petrytskyi's costumes, scenery, and sketches. During 1920-1921, the artist restored the entire lost series, and with the organisation of the Theatre Museum at the Berezil Art Association, he transferred the works to its stock collection.
Among the stage designer's works at the Taras Shevchenko State Drama Theatre are Lesia Ukrainka's The Fireplace Keeper (1921), Henrik Ibsen's The Northern Giants (1921), K. Krzywoszewski's The Devil and the Tavern Keeper (1921). Krzywoszewski (1921), Elga by H. Hauptmann (1921), dramatic studies On the Field of Blood, Captivity in Babylon, On the Ruins, In the Catacombs, and In the House of Work, in the Land of Captivity by Lesia Ukrainka (1920-1921).
In 1925, the artist worked in Kharkiv at the Franko Theatre on the grotesque parody play Viy (based on Mykola Hohol and adapted by Ostap Vyshnia). The play was directed by Hnat Yura, with whom Petrytskyi had started working at the Young Theatre. Later on, Petrytskyi's stage design work was closely connected with opera. Petrytskyi perceived music imaginatively and studied musical scores in detail. He was an opera designer in such productions as Taras Bulba by Mykola Lysenko (1919, 1921, 1927, 1928, 1937, 1955 in the opera houses of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa) and Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin (1926 for three State Opera Houses, 1929 in Kharkiv, 1953 in Kyiv). Puccini's 1928 opera Turandot at the Metropolitan State Opera in Kharkiv was hailed by theatre critics as one of the best.
Petrytskyi's legacy also includes paintings, which were exhibited at major exhibitions in Western Europe during his lifetime. In 1926, Anatolii Petrytskyi created the painting ‘Disabled’ (‘Mother’), which brought him worldwide fame. He dedicated it to the crimes of the First World War, but it undoubtedly also contains the dark experience of his childhood. In 1930, The Invalids was selected to participate in the 17th Venice Biennale. The success of the work was enormous, the foreign press wrote about it, and after the Biennale it was included in an international exhibition that travelled to Berlin, Bern, Geneva, Zurich and New York.
A series of painted portraits of Ukrainian artists created by Petrytskyi in 1928-1931 is notable, including Pavlo Tychyna, Mykhailo Semenko, Ivan Dniprovskyi, Pavlo Usenko, Tadeusz Dolenga-Mostovych, and Vasyl Vasylko.
In the early 1930s, Stalin's repressions affected many prominent artists: Les Kurbas, Vasyl Khmuryi, Serhiy Kargalskyi, Mykola Khvylovyi, and others. In 1937, a series of portraits of artists was actually repressed along with prominent figures who were killed as ‘enemies of the people’. Petrytskyi's album ‘Theatre Costumes’, published in 1929 in Kharkiv, was also banned and destroyed. The artist stopped painting portraits, stopped designing publications and books. When Petrytskyi was on the verge of being shot, his worldwide recognition saved him.
After the Second World War, Petrytskyi worked as the chief artist of the Kyiv Opera House. He designed performances such as the opera Cherevychky (1941), the ballet Lileia (1945), the opera Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1953) by K. Dankevych, and others.
From 1931 to 1933 Anatol Petrytskyi was a professor at the Kharkiv Art Institute. From 1947 to 1950, he was the head of the monumental art workshop, and from 1948 - a professor at the Kyiv Art Institute. Among Petrytskyi's students were M. Antonchyk, I. Waldenberg, N. Karpovskyi, M. Kryvenko, and O. Plaksii.
Virtually every international or Ukrainian exhibition whose title is associated with the Ukrainian avant-garde features Anatol Petrytskyi's works, and the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine takes an active part in these events:
-
2024 - exhibition of A. Petrytskyi's works at the exhibition of the project ‘Ukrainian Theatre Costume of the XX-XXI Centuries: Identity, Context, Landscape’ at the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema (Kyiv). The project is supported by the UCF and the Ukrainian Institute.
-
2024 - ‘At the epicentre of the storm. Modernism in Ukraine’. Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
-
2024 - ‘At the epicentre of the storm. Modernism in Ukraine’. Austrian Belvedere Gallery, Vienna, Austria
-
2024 - ‘Futuromania: Ukraine and the Avant-Garde’ at FeliX Art & Eco Museum. Drogenbosch, Belgium
-
2023 - 2024 ‘At the epicentre of the storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900 - 1930s’. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, Belgium
-
2023 - ‘Modernism in Ukraine. 1900 - 1930’. Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany
-
2023 - ‘Futuromania: Ukraine and the Avant-Garde’ at the KUMU Art Museum. Tallinn, Estonia
-
2022 - 2023 ‘At the Epicentre of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s’. National Museum of Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain
-
2022 - ‘Anatol Petrytskyi. Denial of Banality’ at the Chocolate House (National Museum “Kyiv Art Gallery”). Kyiv, Ukraine,
-
2021 - ‘Futuromania’. Art Arsenal in Kyiv, Ukraine
-
2018 - ‘Eccentricity and Expression. Ukrainian Avant-Garde Scenography’ at the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. Kyiv, Ukraine
-
2015 - ‘Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of 1910-1920’ Ukrainian Museum in New York, USA
-
2013 - ‘Great and majestic’. Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv, Ukraine
-
1995 - ‘Ukrainian scenic avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s’. Cardiff, UK
-
1990 - 1991 ‘Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1920s and 1930s’. Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (Croatia)
-
1990 - ‘Scenography of Ukraine in the 1960s and 1980s’. Mexico City, Mexico.
In 2012, the album ‘Anatol Petrytskyi. Theatre Costumes and Decorations from the Collection of the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema Arts of Ukraine’ was published in 2012. Compiled by: Taras Lozynskyi and Tetiana Rudenko. The publication presents the largest collection of the artist's works belonging to the Theatre Museum, created in 1915-1960.
