Ber Pinkhusovych Blank, an Illustrator and Correspondent of Maksym Rylskyi (Based on Materials of the Archives of the Department of Visual, Decorative and Applied Arts of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology)

Author

LamonovaOksana

a Ph.D. in Art Studies, a research fellow of the Department of Visual and Applied Arts of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine). ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6937-421X

Ber Pinkhusovych Blank, an Illustrator and Correspondent of Maksym Rylskyi

(Based on Materials of the Archives of the Department of Visual, Decorative and Applied Arts of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology)

Abstract

Ber Pinkhusovych Blank (1897–1957) is a famous Ukrainian graphic artist, a student of M. Boichuk’s follower I. Padalka, a master of wood engraving, the author of easel works and illustrations, including the ones for the poems of P. Tychyna and M. Rylskyi, comedies of V. Shakespeare. Unique materials related to this artist are preserved at the archives of the Department of Visual, Decorative and Applied Arts of the NAS of Ukraine M. T. Rylskyi IASFE. Two business letters to B. Blank from the director of the Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the famous poet M. T. Rylskyi are connected with the publication of the Artists of Soviet Ukraine dictionary, which, unfortunately, has never been published. In addition, the artist’s manuscripts (questionnaires, power of attorney, list of works), eight versions of the text of the article by Z. Lashkul about B. Blank for the Artists of Soviet Ukraine dictionary, with numerous handwritten corrections and supplements made by the graphic artist, his autobiography (typescript), black-and-white photos of the artist’s works (in particular, woodcuts from the Poetry of Our Days cycle, among which there is an illustration for M. Rylskyi’s poem Swallows Fly (1947) and others) are kept at the archives. These materials are interesting documents of the epoch, because they contain not only the necessary facts, but also many expressive details and characteristic episodes, through which a complex and dramatic period in the history of the entire country is reflected in the biography of a specific person.

The research is a part of the authoress’s individual planned topic Peculiarities of the Interpretation of the National Tradition in Ukrainian Graphics of the 1990s – 2010s and the general planned topic of the Department of Visual, Decorative and Applied Arts of M. T. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology Ukrainian Art from the Middle Ages to Modern Times: the Search and Formation of National Identity in the Context of the World Cultural Space, as well as the work on the Dictionary of Artists of Ukraine. Further work in the archives of the Department of Visual, Decorative and Applied Arts of the NAS of Ukraine M. T. Rylskyi IASFE, undoubtedly, will discover many more interesting, and perhaps even unique materials, which will become an important supplement to the history of art of Ukraine of the last century, as well as to the multi-volume Dictionary of the Artists of Ukraine, which the department is working on.

Keywords

Ber Blank, Ukrainian art of the 1930s – 1950s, Kharkiv Graphic School, book illustration, linocut, woodcut.

References

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2. SOKOLIUK, Liudmyla, N. TYTARENKO (authors-compilers). The Graphic Art School of Ivan Padalka. Kharkiv. 1920s. A Catalogue of the Exhibition Dedicated to the Centenary of the Artist's Birthday. Kharkiv, 1994, 20 pp. [in Ukrainian].
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