One of the most renown Ukrainian artists, Viktor Zaretskyi has been compared to the titans of Art from the whole world: most often called Ukrainian Picasso, he is also dubbed as Ukrainian Climt – as he adapted the Viennese secession to the Ukrainian cultural space. However, the artist remains himself and creates something new — new styles of folk art with the Ukrainian basis.

Having spent most of his life in Kyiv, Zaretskyi made sure his art skills were passed to the next generation — as a talented teacher, he paved the way for the young 20th century Kyiv artists. The artist dedicated twenty years of his life to cover all the major artistic styles and trends: realism, impressionism, expressionism, and each of the various modernism branches. Naturally, those were the skills he just had to share with the world. Finally, in 1978 he created a studio for the aspiring artists and invented a unique method of accessing the art itself.
Read: Famous Ukrainian Artists of 20th Century

No wonder such a person found a lover like himself — his first wife, Alla Horska, was a renown artist from the Sixtiers generation, human rights activist, and dissident. Together they created more than thirty large mosaic panels in different regions of the country. Zaretskyi drew portraits for Oles' Honchar, Mariya Kapnist, Vasyl Stus and many others. Besides, he is considered the best Ukrainian artist of woman's portrait in the second part of the 20th century. Nowadays, Zaretskyi is included in the Top-10 of the most expensive Ukrainian artists based on auctions results.
The exhibition at the Museum of History of Kyiv will show the best of works of the artist: "Malvy", "Anxiety. October", "Tree of Art", as well as landscape, symbolic and genre paintings.
'50 Shades of Viktor Zaretskyi' will be opened from February 8 till March 1, daily from 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. Entrance is free.
Photo source: MasterManagementUA Facebook page. All images belong to their rightful author.