Vasyl Vovk

Biography

Vasyl Vovk was born on October 31, 1910 in Petrykivka. He learned Petrykivka painting and vytynanka from his mother, who painted houses, flowerpots, and sledges. The brother of the artist Nadiia Tymoshenko, Vovk’s art was passed down naturally in the family, without schooling.

In 1935 and 1936, he participated in exhibitions of Petrykivka masters in Kyiv, Leningrad, and Moscow. In 1939, he studied at the Kyiv School of Masters of Folk Art. He fulfilled museum commissions in Kyiv in 1935-1940.

He died in May 1947 in Petrykivka at the age of thirty-seven.

Artistic Practice

Vasyl Vovk worked in two techniques - drawing on paper and vytynanka, creating elements of peasant home decor: paintings, platbands, rugs, and easel panels. His work is characterized by a perfect mastery of the forms and means of traditional Petrykivka floral painting and carving, as well as a desire to expand their content range - he used wedding and fairy tale themes.

Among the famous works: “Flower” (1936), “Wedding” (1937), “Bouquet” (1940), “Two Flowers” (1941), “Three Flowers” (1941); cutouts “Flowerpot with Flowers and a Bird” (1936), “Glove” (1936), “The Tale of the Pope and His Hired Man Balda” (1937).

Recognition

Participant of republican (since 1935), all-Union (since 1936) and international (since 1938) art exhibitions. His works are kept in the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art and the Dnipro Art Museum.