A sought-after professional sculptor and artist of the 20th century, Ivan Gonchar collected characters and images for his works throughout Ukraine. He was interested in rural landscapes, and in everyday life, and outfits, and customs. He put together an impressive collection of over 7, 000 exhibits, which essentially became the first private museum.
Biography
Ivan Makarovich Gonchar was born in 1911, at the end of January, on the 27th. The native village is Lipyanka, Cherkasy region, Ukraine.
His parents are from the peasant classes. Despite the simple way of life and the lack of higher education among parents, Ivan had a craving for art since childhood.
As he later wrote in a personal diary, he greatly appreciated his simple peasant house, family, lifestyle. Here, on a folk stove, he began to create: planing, drawing, writing, sculpting, cutting. This stove, his house is traditionally national, it was his real hobby. Even when, in adulthood, he bought an apartment in Kiev itself, he still strove for the people. And by the end of his life he managed to build a house, which later became the museum center of Ivan Gonchar.
In the 1930s, Vanya graduated from the Kiev Art and Industrial School. His teacher was the artist V. Klimov. In 1936 he became a graduate of the Institute of Agrochemistry and Soil Science in Kiev (which today is called the Institute of Agriculture).
Then the army happened, a call to the front - participation in the Great Patriotic War. Upon returning from the war, he again returned to art.
Creation
Potter owns the following sculptural works:
- monument to Ustim Karmelyuk,
- Monument to Ivan Gonte,
- monument to Gregory Skovoroda,
- monument to young Taras Shevchenko,
- monument to Forest Ukrainka,
- monument to Mikhail Kotsyubinsky,
- Monument to Vladimir Sosyura,
- monument to S. Vasilchenko,
- Monument to E. Paton,
- Monument to I. Bridka,
- other.
His sculptures of famous folk figures are very realistic and naturally convey the images of great people. Despite the agitation character present in them, the monuments to outstanding figures were created very painstakingly, talentedly, with attention to detail.
Potter is also known for his realistic art portraits:
- Bohdan Khmelnytsky,
- Maria Zankovetskaya,
- Les Kurbas,
- Anatoly Solovyanenko,
- other.
In addition to monumental portraits and sculptures, the Ukrainian maestro Ivan Gonchar paid a lot of attention to the images and representatives of peasants.
What this original ethnologist and an enthusiastic collector did for his people can be equated with the full achievement of a whole scientific institute. He researched, studied, described, collected, reproduced, shared all this with his contemporaries.
Unique collection
Since the late 1950s, he began to collect objects of Ukrainian folk culture and the lives of ordinary people, he was ready to travel through the whole country for antiques. All this the first time he kept in his workshop and at home, bit by bit creating the first private collection.
By the end of the 20th century, his collection of Ukrainian antiquity included more than 7 thousand unique exhibits. As the collector himself said, he was doing this for the main purpose - the Ukrainian people should learn as much about themselves and their roots as possible! He never regarded his huge collection as a kind of museum collection. He sought all this and kept it not for saving in hiding places, as he later confesses to in his diary, but for festive decoration of houses. He dreamed not only of creating a haven for folk cultural values that were doomed to disappear (if he had not gathered them), he strove to create a unique atmosphere - such that any spectator, plunging into it, could feel his identity.
His first major solo exhibition was held in February 1988 in one of the halls of the Union of Artists of Ukraine.
Admiring and conveying traditions to contemporaries, Gonchar wrote a collection of art paintings “Ukrainian folk characters in local national dress of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries”. These paintings are still in demand and exhibited in various halls of Ukraine. And his collection is presented in the house-museum of the Potter.
He built the museum as a house, pointing out to everyone: “This is your house! We have created it ourselves. With your own hands and hearts. " He was absolutely sure that this is already inscribed in Ukrainian traditional art and original culture.
