Celebrating International Women!

In keeping with our theme [women, firsts, Ukraine] here is something of interest

Ukraine is not just the cradle of Eastern-Slavic culture; its painters, sculptors and photographers have made important contributions to every modern and contemporary art movement. While the fate of the nation lies in the balance, its place within the art world remains assured. Today – celebrating these women artists from Ukraine.

Born Leah Berliawsky near Kyiv in 1899, Louise Nevelson’s family emigrated to the United States in 1905. Nevelson was inspired to study art a few years later, aged nine, when she came across a sculpture of Joan of Arc at the public library in Rockland, Maine.

Her best-known works are monumental, monochromatic sculptures made from wood, aluminium and steel, much of which was scavenged from the street, which seemed to reference her complicated past and her uncertain future.

However, Nevelson (one of the few women acknowledged as being associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement), also worked in other mediums.

This beautiful aquatint and etching in colors with collage on C. M. Fabriano paper dates from 1973, and certainly possesses some of her signature, fragmented style.

Sonia Delaunay was born Sophia Stern in 1885 in Ukraine, raised in St Petersburg and studied in both Germany and France, before marrying the French artist Robert Delaunay.

Husband and wife were both pioneers of modernist painting, though Sonia also branched out into fabric, interiors and clothing design, as well as ballet costumes.

This abstract work, dating from 1969, is a fine example of Delaunay’s oeuvre – sometimes known as Orphism – as it combines distinct colors and geometric shapes to produce an image with a sense of rhythm and movement.

For a taste of contemporary Ukrainian art, take a look at this young Kharkiv artist.

Yuliya Golovina was born in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, and seems to have something in common with contemporary American artists such as Katherine Bernhardt.

She studied psychology as an undergraduate, and also makes a little EDM on the side, though we really singled her out for her expressive, bright, acrylic on fiberboard works.