Page 3 - Michel Andreenko and Ukrainian Artists in Paris

exhibited with Andreenko multiple abstraction. Different styles by the
times before World War II, while same artist, are also presented,
Butovych and Moroz, only once such as Zarytska’s bending
in Lviv in 1931. Solohub, Hutsaliuk erratic abstraction of a figure
and Wirsta arrived in the 1950s hung alongside two intimate,
and were colleagues and friends. monochromatic green forest
This exhibition offers a glimpse landscapes, as well as Borachok’s
into their own artistic styles, fauvist still life displayed next to a
some slightly similar, but most café scene of a social realist bent.
quite different, ranging from Andreenko himself is represented
street and landscape scenes by two abstract works, an undated
representationally interpreted by oil and late period lithograph from
Gritchenko to those by Hutsaliuk 1977, emblematic of the geometric
and Solohub, visualized through forms and compositions with
both painterly and geometrically which his modernism became
oriented abstractions. Moroz’s distinguished.
landscapes focus on broad
strokes of pigment capturing Andreenko, like numerous artists
the effects of light. Expressive from Eastern Europe, gravitated
color characterizes the work of towards Montparnasse,
Wirsta as well as Hlushchenko, generally situated in the 14th
yet their interests, technique and arrondissement or district in
subjects are vastly apart. Wirsta’s Paris’ Left Bank. The area had a
bursts of bright expressive color history as an artist neighborhood
and textured brushwork seem since the mid-19th century, when
to thoughtfully evoke the music French artists clustered there,
he often played while painting. and over time, attracted others.
Hlushchenko’s abstracted Private art schools or académies
interpretations of flowers depart run by artists were commonly
far from their original subject, available, among them the noted
drawing our attention rather Académie Colarossi and nearby
to the movement of his delicate Académie Grande Chaumière. By
brushstrokes across the picture the late 19th century, Americans
plane, and only slightly suggesting were more apparent, and in the
a bud, a petal perhaps through 20th century, up until the 1930s,
a gentle touch of color. Butovich foreigners made up some 30 to 40
is represented by his late career percent of the district’s artists. To
1
watercolors of witches, based give it further perspective, Paris
on Ukrainian folklore, boldly alone was reported home to some
colorful and evocative in their 40,000 artists in the 1920s. One
2

1 Mary Blume, “Marie Vassilief: A Splash of Montparnasse Color,” The New York Times, Oct. 3,
1998.
2 Vita Susak, Ukrainian Artists in Paris, 1900-1939, Kyiv: Rodovid Press, 2010, p. 97. Susak’s
volume provides the most complete study on the subject to date.