The Holodomor Museum congratulated Valerii Franchuk, author of a series of paintings about the Holodomor, on his anniversary
The staff of the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide congratulated Valerii Franchuk, People’s Artist of Ukraine and winner of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine, as well as the author of the series of paintings, “The Swinging Bells of Memory,” on his 75th birthday. The anniversary creative meeting took place at the Museum of Books and Printing of Ukraine as part of the artist’s exhibition “Skylark Skies.” Many representatives of the public and the museum community came to congratulate the jubilarian.
Lesia Hasydzhak, Director General of the Holodomor Museum, expressed her gratitude for Valerii Franchuk’s invaluable contribution to visualising the Holodomor theme. According to her, the long-standing commemoration of the tragedy of the genocide of the Ukrainian nation in 1932–1933 in painting and graphic art is an essential contribution to overcoming the trauma of a post-genocidal society.
The museum staff considers you a great friend. Not only because you held an exhibition here or promised to donate some of your paintings, but mainly because of your decades of dedicated work depicting the Holodomor in your paintings,” emphasised Andrii Ivanets, a senior researcher at the Holodomor Museum, during the creative evening.
Valerii Franchuk created an amazingly diverse body of work; his paintings are in many museums in Ukraine and collections around the world, but the theme of the genocide of Ukrainians in the 20th century became one of his leading themes. The scholar said that he had studied the paintings and graphic works of nearly 150 artists on this theme, some of which were extremely masterfully created and spiritually powerful. However, in terms of the scale and depth of the coverage of the topic, no one can compare with the work of the jubilarian today. Valerii Franchuk created his first graphic works on the Ukrainian tragedy of 1932–1933 in 1989, and has been painting since the early 1990s. The impetus for this came from family stories and his own experience of survival in 1946–1947. His mother’s stories about the Holodomor touched the future artist’s soul and sprouted into a large series of works entitled “The Swinging Bells of Memory”. Over three decades, the artist created more than 280 paintings, graphic works and sculptures in this series, which he exhibited at dozens of exhibitions. Valerii Franchuk’s work helped to restore the memory of the Holodomor, which had been repressed for over half a century, to Ukrainian society.
“The paradox is that Valerii Franchuk’s artistic truth about the tragedy does not traumatise, but helps to reflect on and symbolise the horror experienced, to realise it and overcome it. In other words, the artist not only connects different times, mediating between the collective subconscious of the nation and our contemporary consciousness, but also acts as a therapist to a certain extent,” believes Andrii Ivanets.
PROFILE
Valerii Franchuk (born in the village of Zelena, Khmelnytskyi region) is a People’s Artist of Ukraine, author of over 3,500 paintings, 3,000 graphic works, and about 120 sculptures. He has exhibited his works at 213 solo exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad and participated in over 180 group exhibitions. His creative work explores themes of Ukrainian history, culture, nature, spirituality, biblical stories, the Holodomor, and the Chernobyl tragedy. The artist creates paintings using a unique technique that blends elements of expressionism, impressionism, and symbolic realism.
