Vira Klymenko Zhukova

Biography

Vira Klymenko (née Zhukova) was born on December 22, 1921, in Petrykivka. She studied at the Petrykivka School of Decorative Drawing, where her teacher was Tetiana Pata, and graduated in 1939.

Immediately after graduation, in 1939-1940, she worked in the Nadiia Krupska Artel in Velyki Sorochyntsi, Poltava region. In 1940-1941, she worked at the Metalopodnos factory in Moscow.

Since 1944, she worked at the Kyiv Experimental Ceramic and Art Factory (KECAF), where she headed the art department from 1947. Together with Marfa Tymchenko, her sisters Vira and Hanna Pavlenko, and Pelhia Hlushchenko, she was part of the Kyiv group of Petrykivka artists who in 1947 introduced the use of underlacquer painting on a black background at the Shevchenko Kyiv Souvenir Factory, a method that would later define the face of Soviet Petrykivka for decades to come.

The researchers emphasize the special role of Klymenko-Zhukova in this group: it was she who headed the relevant workshop at the Kyiv Sewing Factory from 1947 and made the greatest contribution to both the importance of this trend and the level of skill in its execution.

Member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine (1945). She died on March 28, 1965 in Kyiv at the age of forty-three.

Artistic Practice

She performed decorative paintings on porcelain products, as well as tempera paintings on paper. Among the works: a vase with a self-portrait (1957), vases (1961, 1963), a teapot and a tea set (1964). Decorative works on paper: postcards, supercover for the album “Ukrainian Decorative Paintings” (Kyiv, 1957), decorative rug and frieze (1957), panel and two friezes (1960), panel with birds (1963), “Summer”, “Mikivka” (1964), “Yellow Plums”, “Flowers” (1965).

Recognition

Member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine (1945). Participant of republican, all-Union and international art exhibitions since 1938. His works are permanently represented in the collection of the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art as one of the central representatives of the Kyivan Petrykivka style of painting on porcelain.