Ivan Marchuk

Gallery Triptych ART, Kyiv

Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 2005

Ivan Marchuk: Album-catalogue, Kyiv, 2004, p. 432, illustrated (with incorrect title and date)

Ivan Marchuk, Voice of my Soul: Catalogue raisonné, Vol. 4, Kyiv, 2024, p. 64, illustrated (titled And the forests were here)

Ivan Marchuk is one of Ukraine's most famous contemporary artists. A non-conformist, he openly opposed social realism, the official art style of the Soviet Union forced onto artists by the government. This led to Marchuk being harassed by the KGB. Everything that didn’t fall under social realism was considered ideologically harmful by the Soviet regime— meaning anything figurative and abstract, complex and moody, any search for a free form. Since Marchuk’s work challenged the conventions of social realism, the Soviet government sought to suppress his work and even directed the KGB to directly persecute and threaten him. This treatment lasted for years, reaching its peak in the 1970s, and caused Marchuk’s art to be under an unofficial ban for over 17 years. Marchuk eventually managed to emigrate to the US in the 1980s, and only returned to Ukraine after 9/11.