Illustration

Onufrii Biziukov

Onufrii Biziukov (June 24, 1897 – March 15, 1986) was a Ukrainian painter, landscape artist, representative of lyrical modernism and a successor of the Boichukist movement. He was a member of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine (ARAU) from 1929 to 1932. Biziukov studied art at the Myrhorod School of Arts and Crafts, and continued his education at the Kyiv Art Institute (1923–1930) in Mykhailo Boichuk’s class (Department of Monumental Painting). He participated in creation of monumental murals at the Kyiv Art Institute (1924) and the All-Ukrainian Museum Town at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (1926).

  • In 1935, Biziukov was repressed as a follower of the “reactionary Boichukist school” and sentenced to three years in labor camps. Following his arrest, his works were seized and placed in the Special Fund of the National Art Museum of Ukraine (1937–1939), which was formed to remove “formalists” and “nationalists” from the museum’s collections. Released in 1939, he moved to Kuibyshev, and returned to Kyiv after World War II.

    Biziukov worked in the genres of landscape, still life, and portraiture. His art combined Boichukist principles with lyrical modernism, Impressionism, and post-Cubism, emphasizing color, line rhythm, and decorative-compositional structure. Notable early works include On the Steamboat by the Boiler, The Harmonist, and Red Army Soldier with Horse (1920s–1930s); Sawyers in the Forest (1931). Postwar works include Old Kyiv (1947), Dnipro Fishermen (1951), Surf (1953), Spring. Rzhyshchiv (1963), Dnipro Cliffs (1964), On the Kyiv Hills (1966), and Orange Jug (1967), executed in Impressionist and Post-Cubist styles with experimental color structures and compositional forms.

    Biziukov participated in All-Ukrainian and USSR-wide exhibitions from the 1920s, and in international exhibitions after World War II. Solo exhibitions of his work in Kyiv were organized in 1959, 1971, and 1985. His works were also featured in retrospectives dedicated to the Boichukist movement in Kyiv in the 1980s and later.

    His works are held in the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Mykolaiv Regional Art Museum named after Vereshchagin, the Kharkiv Art Museum, and private collections.

    Onufrii Biziukov remains a remarkable figure in the Ukrainian monumental-decorative tradition of the 20th century, representing the “second wave” of Boichukism, combining the principles of Mykhailo Boichuk’s school with modern painting trends, while maintaining artistic integrity despite political repression.

Gallery

Illustration

From the series Dnipro Banks