Oleksandr Statyva
Biography
Oleksandr Statyva was born on March 8, 1898, in Petrykivka in the family of a village doctor. He had two brothers, Mykola and Oleksii, and three sisters: Yevdokiya, Halyna, and Nadiia. The educated family instilled in the children a deep sense of beauty and humanity. In elementary school, the boy was especially fond of drawing, singing, and reading.
The meeting with Dmytro Yavornytskyi took place thanks to an incident that determined Oleksandr’s future fate: on a school trip to the Katerynoslav Museum, he refused to leave his Kobzar, covered with Petrykivka paintings, on the luggage table. The museum director, seeing the painted book, was delighted and asked the boy to personally introduce him to the artist. This episode inspired the Staryva family to collect paintings and valuable items and forever connected Oleksandr with Petrykivka painting.
In May 1913, he entered the Myrhorod Art School, where he studied with the outstanding painter and ethnographer Opanas Slastion. The latter paid much attention to folk art, introduced his students to ancient Ukrainian ornamentation, and advised Oleksandr to take up the study of Petrykivka painting, which was gradually declining at the time.
Returning to Petrykivka in 1917, Statyva began teaching drawing and painting at three schools at the same time. In 1921, he entered the correspondence department of the Odesa Art Institute. For several years he worked in an orphanage and a school for railway workers in Katerynoslav, after which he returned to his native village.
Collection and preparation of the exhibition
For twenty years, Oleksandr Feodosiiovych tirelessly collected paintings by Petrykivka craftswomen, providing them with materials and encouraging them to create. By 1935, he had collected over 300 works. It was thanks to his direct communication with Stavova that the “malyovka” acquired the form of easel graphics: the artists began to paint on plain paper as independent decorative compositions, not just as an element of home decor.
In the summer of 1935, when he learned about the preparation of a republican exhibition of folk art in Kyiv, he sent 100 samples of Petrykivka paintings from his own collection to the Exhibition Committee. The works attracted attention and were accepted for exhibition. Statyva personally organized the departure of the Petrykivka craftswomen to Kyiv, a difficult task because the women worked on different collective farms and had small children. In early October 1935, Tetiana Pata, Nadiia Bilokin, and Halyna Pavlenko arrived in the capital, followed by Yaryna and Hanna Pylypenko.
The 1936 exhibition was a great success. Statyva conducted excursions for government officials in the hall of Petrykivka paintings and emphasized that art was in decline-the transfer of knowledge from a master to only one student from a family was a narrow path. He was convinced that a school was needed where a master could teach many.
School of Decorative Drawing
The initiative was supported, and in September 1936, Oleksandr Statyva was appointed director of the newly founded Petrykivka School of Decorative Drawing, the first specialized art institution of its kind.
The school was a two-year institution, accepting students aged 15 to 40, with a scholarship of 100 rubles per month. In addition to artistic disciplines-painting, drawing, art theory and history, and the composition of Petrykivka painting-general education subjects were taught: mathematics, physics, history, geography, Ukrainian and Russian languages, and literature. The composition of Petrykivka painting was taught by Tetiana Pata, and artistic disciplines by Statyva himself.
It was at the school, in contact with professional art, that the traditional style was transformed: from the author’s features of individual masters, it acquired the characteristics of a school with a certain set of typical elements, precision of lines, harmony of compositions, and calligraphic execution of motifs. The style of Tetiana Paty was taken as a basis.
Among the students invited by Statyva was Marfa Tymchenko, a future prominent artist, People’s Artist of Ukraine.
on June 1, 1937, Oleksandr Statyva was arrested on grounds of false accusation, allegedly for his participation in the counter-revolutionary union Prosvita. After the charges were found to be unfounded, he was released and continued to work at a secondary school. The School of Decorative Drawing lasted until 1941, when it graduated its last class of students and ceased operations. However, the foundation laid proved to be solid: it was its graduates who made it possible to preserve and develop Petrykivka painting in the postwar decades.
Cultural work in Petrykivka
In parallel with the school and collecting, Oleksandr Feodosiiovych was engaged in tireless cultural work in the village itself.
He restored the local library, donated a significant part of the books from his own collection, decorated the collection and became its first head. The library turned into a real educational center: it trained agronomists and zootechnicians, held seminars for managers of various industries, writing classes, and literary reviews.
He organized a folk theater, where anyone could join in acting and public speaking. The theater’s repertoire won prizes at the Republican Olympiad of amateur performances.
He founded the artistic embroidery studio “Free Peasant Woman”.
War, captivity, escape
During the Nazi occupation of Petrykivka, Statyva organized a drama theater - first patriotic vaudeville and concert programs, then operettas and lyrical performances commissioned by the audience.
When the Nazis retreated, they burned everything around them-all of Statyva’s paintings were destroyed. The artist himself, along with other civilians, was included in the column of prisoners as a living barrier in front of enemy equipment. From September 20, 1943, to August 11, 1944, he walked on foot without food or warm clothes, sleeping in the open air. He was able to get away from the column only near Drohobych.
After his escape, he worked for some time as an actor and set designer at the Drohobych Drama Theater, but his poor health prevented him from working on stage. After weighing his options, he moved to his sister’s house in Kyiv.
Kyiv period
From 1944, Oleksandr Statyva lived and worked in Kyiv as a methodologist and artist of fine arts at the House of Folk Art. However, he never left Petrykivka: he supported the artists in the restoration of the Free Peasant Artel and later the Druzhba Art Factory. He kept up a constant correspondence with Fedir Panko, who continued Stachyva’s work in the revival of Petrykivka art.
In the 1960s, he published his scientific publications, including the monograph-album Master of Decorative Painting Nadiia Bilokin (1966), the first thorough study of the work of one of the luminaries of Petrykivka painting. After his death, Stativ donated his collection of the best works to the Museum of Decorative Arts.
Oleksandr Statyva died on March 10, 1965, two days after his 67th birthday.
Role in the history of Petrykivka painting
Oleksandr Statyva’s place in the Petrykivka tradition is special and probably underestimated. Without him, Petrykivka painting could have simply faded away: by the 1930s, there were only a few artists left in Petrykivka who painted and sold their works at the market. It was Stavila:
assembled a collection that made possible the first all-Ukrainian presentation of Petrykivka painting in 1936; organized a visit of the artists to Kyiv and conducted the first public tours of the Petrykivka Art Hall; initiated and headed the first specialized art school that educated generations of artists - Marfa Tymchenko, Fedir Panko, Vasyl Sokolenko, Halyna Prudnikova, and others; provided the artists with materials, which gave impetus to the development of “malivka” as an independent easel painting; preserved the memory of the tradition through collecting and art history research.
Marfa Tymchenko recalled: “O.F. Statyva was a kind, competent teacher. Children loved him very much. He took us on a tour to T.Y. Pata, took us to his house, where there were many exhibits of Petrykivka painting by old masters, towels, ceramics, weaving… He helped me become a master of Petrykivka painting, and I am very grateful to him for that.”
Recognition
Monograph-album “Master of Decorative Painting Nadiia Bilokin” (Kyiv: Mystetstvo, 1966). Fedir Panko dedicated the panel “Oleksandr Statyva” (1989) to him. Marfa Tymchenko created a work of remembrance “Mother, Me, Teacher O.F. Statyva” (2009). Vasyl Sokolenko painted a portrait of Oleksandr - Oleksandra Statyva (1990s).