Illustration

Ivan Kryslach

Ivan Kryslach (October 12, 1929 – February 12, 2017) was a Ukrainian graphic artist and Honored Artist of Ukraine. He studied painting at the Ivan Fedorov Ukrainian Printing Institute. He mastered the techniques of linocut, etching, and lithography. In his art, he drew on the iconographic foundation of Ukrainian painting, as well as ornamental motifs of Ukrainian Baroque and folk art.

  • Throughout his artistic career, the artist created more than 300 ex libris works, beginning with coarse linoleum and later working on plastic. Almost all of them were composed on an unframed plane. His works were distinguished by the refinement and delicacy of the graphic line, playfulness, melodiousness, and integrity. Kryslach’s ex libris designs stood out for their meaningful foundations, ideological direction, and narrative character.
    In easel graphics, the artist became widely known for his image of the Kobzar. On March 10, 1964, in the year of the 150th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s birth, the Lviv youth newspaper published Kryslach’s portrait of Shevchenko across the entire width of its front page.
    Kryslach also worked in monumental painting and created illustrations for the works of Ukrainian writers, including Ivan Franko’s Zakhar Berkut and Boryslav Stories, the short stories of Vasyl Stefanyk and Osyp Yatskiv, the humorous rhymes of Stepan Rudanskyi, as well as children’s books.
    He worked until his final days. A month before his death, the A priori Publishing House released Ivan Franko’s fairy tale Abu-Kasim’s Slippers with his illustrations.

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