 | Vasyl Vasylovych KRYCHEVSKY 1901 — 1978Василь Васильович КРИЧЕВСЬКИЙ • Василий Васильевич КРИЧЕВСКИЙ Vasyl Vasylovych Krychevsky was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1901. He was a Ukrainian painter known for his oils and gouaches. He was the son of Vasyl Hryhorovych Krychevsky. The artist graduated from Kyiv High School No. 4 in 1919. He studied at the Kyiv Art Academy in 1919-1923 and graduated from the easel painting department. He married Olena Kolomiyets in 1921. V.V.Krychevsky taught drawing and composition at the Kyiv School of Art and Industrial Design in 1923-1925. During 1926-1928 he worked as an artistic director at the Odesa Film Studios and in 1929-1935 – at the Kyiv Film Studios. He worked on 16 films and collaborated with such well known film producers as Lopatynsky, Dovzhenko and Kavaleridze. One of the most important films where V.V.Krychevsky was the artistic director is Earth (Zemlya) (1930) by Oleksandr Dovzhenko. During 1935-1941 V.V.Krychevsky worked as graphic and decorative artist, painter as well as furniture designer. During the early years of World War II the artist stayed in Kyiv and painted landscapes and portraits. He left Kyiv in 1943 and moved to Prague where he stayed until 1944. In 1944 he moved to Vienna where at the train station a large suitcase with works by his father, Vasyl Hryhorovych Krychevsky was stolen. In 1945 he was at the German work camp in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) and from February of 1945 in the concentration camp in Bunzlau (now Boleslawiec, Poland). This territory was liberated by American Army in April of 1945 and the artist was able to walk to Mannheim’s refugee camp in Germany, where he stayed until 1946. In the refugee camp V.V.Krychevsky decorated the canteen with murals. In 1946-1947 the artist stayed in Heidelberg. The artist moved with his family to the USA in 1949 where he settled in San Francisco. Professionally V.V.Krychevsky worked as an illustrator and film decorator at American film studios. He lived and worked in California for 30 years. The artist died in 1978.
Besides participating in a number of group exhibitions, V.V.Krychevsky held solo exhibitions at Civic Center, Buena Park, CA (1970), University Art Center, Palo Alto, CA (1971), Sonevytska Gallery, New York (1971), Sofia Skrypnyk curated show at West End Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (1976). Posthumous exhibitions: “Miniatures”, Oxford Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (1984), “Old Masters” Sofia Skrypnyk curated show in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (1986). V.V.Krychevsky exhibited together with his daughter, Kateryna Krychevsky- Rosandich. Together they held five exhibitions.
V.V.Krychevsky enjoyed painting landscapes and masterfully executed sky and clouds. Besides painting Californian landscapes, V.V.Krychevsky often painted Ukrainian motifs from memory - village of Vorozhba where he visited his grandmother as a little boy, traditional peasant huts, river Psil, windmills, city of Lebedyn, Crimean mountains and Black sea. This biography was compiled with help of Kateryna Krychevsky-Rosandich, artist’s daughter in March of 2013. |
