Davyd Burliuk, Carousel, 1921 National Art Museum of Ukraine © The Burliuk Foundation
In June 2024, the Royal Academy of Arts will present In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s, the most comprehensive UK exhibition to date about modern art in Ukraine. The exhibition will bring together around 70 artworks, many of which will be on loan from the National Art Museum of Ukraine and the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. On display will be work by renowned artists including Alexander Archipenko, Sonia Delaunay, Alexandra Exter and Kazymyr Malevych, as well as lesser-known artists such as Mykhailo Boichuk, Oleksandr Bohomazov and Vasyl Yermilov.
Oleksandr Bohomazov, Sharpening the Saws, 1927 – National Art Museum of Ukraine
Geopolitically, Ukraine has for centuries been a borderland, with its territory divided between various
empires and its people not perceived as a single nation until the late nineteenth century. Yet there
were short periods of independence crucial for the formation of a Ukrainian identity. This complex
historical background resulted in a vibrant amalgamation of influences, a fusion of Ukrainian, Polish,
Russian and Jewish elements that created a distinctly local cultural profile.
Volodymyr Burliuk, Ukrainian Peasant Woman, 1910–11, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
© Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
The modernist movement in Ukraine unfolded against a complicated socio-political backdrop of World War I, collapsing empires, the revolutions of 1917 with the ensuing short-lived independence of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917–20), and the eventual establishment of Soviet Ukraine in 1922.
Tymofii Boichuk, Women under the Apple Tree, 1920 – National Art Museum of Ukraine
Despite such political turmoil, this became a period of bold artistic and literary experiments, and a flourishing in Ukrainian art, literature, theatre and cinema.
Alexandra Exter, Composition (Genova), 1912 – Alex Lachmann Collection
Highlighting the range of artistic styles and cultural identities that existed in Ukraine in the early
twentieth century, the exhibition will be divided into six thematic sections. The first section will
showcase the Cubo-Futurist movement, when young artists from Ukraine combined elements of
different radical trends that they had encountered in Western European capitals to create their own
visual language.
Alexandra Exter, Three Female Figures, 1909-10 – National Art Museum of Ukraine
The next section will explore the role of theatre design as one of the most vigorous expressions of modernism in Ukraine, highlighting work by Alexandra Exter, Vadym Meller and Anatol Petrytskyi.
Marko Epshtein, The Tailor’s Family, c. 1920 – National Art Museum of Ukraine
The next gallery will spotlight the Kultur Lige, which brought together young Jewish artists such as El Lissitzky, Issakhar Ber Ryback and Sarah Shor to foster a synthesis of the Jewish artistic tradition and the European avant-garde.
Kostiantyn Yeleva, Portrait, late 1920s – National Art Museum of Ukraine
This will be followed by sections looking at Early Soviet Ukraine and the artistic hubs of Kharkiv (which became the capital following the establishment of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic), and Kyiv Art Institute. There will also be a section dedicated to the Last Generation, whose artistic activities were cut short in 1932 with the Soviet Union’s abolition of all independent art groups and the imposition of socialist realism as the single official artistic style.
In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s will share the story of modernist artists
in Ukraine and their attempts to produce a recognisable national style in a bid for Ukrainian statehood
and cultural autonomy, spotlighting this little known in the West chapter of European Modernism.
For more information and tickets, visit the Royal Academy website here
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