Group Photo of the Fabric Painting Team

The russian-language caption under the photo, written in simple pencil, reads: "The team for painting fabrics from left to right: Liova Chornyi (killed in the war), Doiakina, Ivanova A. M., Trofimova, Olieshka, Fimia Viktor, Liezviiev Mikhail, Hrishyn, Ivan Ivanovich" without specifying the place and date of the photo. As Mykhailo Lezviiev appears in the photograph, it can be assumed that it was taken no later than his arrest (8 October 1937), and since OC-1 (Personnel Files-1) of the Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine have contracts, orders and labour agreements from the 1930s mentioning the Fabric Painting Workshop of the Painting and Exhibition Combine of the Art Fund of the USSR, the probable period of the photograph's creation is 1934–1936. The image shows members of the team who painted the fabrics. Except for Mykhailo Lezviiev, who is standing on the far right, all of them are seated in upholstered chairs against a background of decorative fabrics, one of which is probably batik, depicting a stylised, almost suprematist scene of a stadium with stands and spectators and sporting competitions. In addition to Antonina Ivanova and her husband Mykhailo Lezviiev, the photo on the right shows the artist Serhii Hrishyn (1914–1995), who, after the war, studied at the Department of Applied Graphics at the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts and worked for some time in publishing houses in Lviv and Kyiv (for example, he designed Yaroslav Halan's publication "The Day Before: Essays and Stories"). Serhii Hrishyn's personality is worth mentioning, as his personnel file, which is kept in the archives of the Lviv National Academy of Arts, contains autobiographies (dated 25.07.1946 – Sheet 172 and dated 03.03.1949 – Sheet 175) and a personal record sheet with detailed information about previous jobs, dated 03.03.1949 (Sheets 176–177) and an application for admission, which states that he was demobilised "... in August 1946 at the request of the Honourable Artist Moor for the purpose of entering the Art Institute" (Sheet 171). In addition, the study of a photograph from Card 24 of the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (Sheet 186) suggests that the graduate of the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts, Serhii Ivanovych Hrishyn, is the same person depicted in the photograph from Antonina Ivanova's archive signed "Hrishyn". However, in the course of studying the documents mentioned above, it turned out that Serhii Hrishyn (as defined by the researcher Olha Khutorianska), for unspecified personal reasons, did not provide any information about working in the same team as Antonina Ivanova and Mykhailo Lezviiev. Instead, his 1946 autobiography states that after graduating from a village school (1929) and a seven-year school (1932), he worked as a teacher and later as the head of the educational department at the Ardatov orphanage while also teaching drawing at the Ardatov secondary school (Ardatov, Gorky region, RSFSR) and at the same time studied at the Murom Pedagogical School (Ivanovo industrial region, RSFSR), which he entered in 1932 and graduated from in 1937, after which he served in the Red Army (russian: РККА) from November 1937 to November 1940 (Sheet 172). The same information is duplicated in his autobiography of 1949 (Sheet 175) and his personal personnel record sheet. No information from Antonina Ivanova's archive could be used to clarify the dating of the photograph, so the question arises as to his motives for concealing the biography fact about his work in the fabric painting workshop of the Painting and Exhibition Combine of the Art Fund of the USSR. It can be assumed that this was particularly provoked by the fact that Mykhailo Lezviiev was convicted and executed in 1937. Given that, apart from Serhii Hrishyn, only Antonina Ivanova's biography and part of Lev Chornyi's biography (the inscription on the photograph states that he was killed during the war) have been reliably established, it is impossible to say whether there was any potentially compromising connection with the other persons depicted. It should be emphasised here that in the case of an admission by recommendation of the iconic Soviet graphic artist Dmytro Moor, it would be logical to provide information about his connection to the Moscow artistic environment of the 1930s and his experience of working in teams engaged in high-profile artistic work. In our opinion, this aspect will have the prospect of further clarification and research. As for the dating of the inscription on the photograph, the peculiarities of the content of the handwritten inscription on the reverse, and in particular the fact that one of the persons depicted died during the war, indicate that it was probably made in 1945 at the earliest, and possibly much later, when Antonina Ivanova's personal archive was being organised. The photo after digital restoration was first published in the following article: Khorunzha, H., & Maksymiv, M. (2022). Boychukist Mykhailo Lezviiev: Unknown heritage (Works from the collection and archive of Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery). Obrazotvorche Mystetsvo [Fine Arts], 3–4, 95. Kyiv.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery