About the Artist
An architect by training, he dedicated all his life to painting and became an artist who can confidently be called a successor of the traditions of Roerich, Bilibin, Benoit, Cezanne, Matisse, Derain and Albert Marquet.
An unsurpassed master of architectural landscape, one of the best watercolorists of the USSR, a tireless traveler and hard worker, he traveled across Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Finland, Georgia with a modest sketchbook in his hands. He walked around many ceremonial squares of the capitals and narrow streets of small provincial towns. Seeking a right angle, he climbed high hills and found secluded places in small courtyards. Tirelessly and insatiably, he painted portraits of cities, a sort of artist’s travel notes.
Yuriy Khymych had a special perception of every city, allowing him not just to record what he saw, but to translate it into a semi-fantastic plane. The master never sought to make something resembling reality, but he was capable to create an “image of a place”, tell about a city or a monument in a way no one else could.
The key city of his life was Kyiv, where he lived, studied, worked and painted. He painted the baroque ensembles of St Sofia Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra without exaggeration hundreds of times. As a result, the following extensive cycles were created: Architectural Ensemble of St Sofia of Kyiv, Vydubichi, Old Podol, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Being modest in his everyday life beyond measure, Yuriy Khymych was involved in the great cause of saving the monuments of sacred architecture in the 1960s and 80s. He was one of the first and very few artists of the former USSR to raise awareness of the cultural heritage of Ukraine, which for a long time remained unclaimed and unprotected. Throughout the Union, temples and ancient cathedrals were ruined, monuments of wooden architecture were burned, shrines were destroyed. It is thanks to the selfless work of the artist that many architectural monuments of Ukraine have been preserved and put on the UNESCO list today.
Yuriy Khymych absorbed the achievements of world art and at the same time was deeply rooted in the national culture of Ukraine, very close to the master. Without a doubt, his work was influenced by the processes that inspired many artists of his generation. Yuriy Khymych is a unique phenomenon, bright and original, a separate planet in the big galaxy of world art of the second half of the twentieth century.
An unsurpassed master of architectural landscape, one of the best watercolorists of the USSR, a tireless traveler and hard worker, he traveled across Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Finland, Georgia with a modest sketchbook in his hands. He walked around many ceremonial squares of the capitals and narrow streets of small provincial towns. Seeking a right angle, he climbed high hills and found secluded places in small courtyards. Tirelessly and insatiably, he painted portraits of cities, a sort of artist’s travel notes.
Yuriy Khymych had a special perception of every city, allowing him not just to record what he saw, but to translate it into a semi-fantastic plane. The master never sought to make something resembling reality, but he was capable to create an “image of a place”, tell about a city or a monument in a way no one else could.
The key city of his life was Kyiv, where he lived, studied, worked and painted. He painted the baroque ensembles of St Sofia Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra without exaggeration hundreds of times. As a result, the following extensive cycles were created: Architectural Ensemble of St Sofia of Kyiv, Vydubichi, Old Podol, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Being modest in his everyday life beyond measure, Yuriy Khymych was involved in the great cause of saving the monuments of sacred architecture in the 1960s and 80s. He was one of the first and very few artists of the former USSR to raise awareness of the cultural heritage of Ukraine, which for a long time remained unclaimed and unprotected. Throughout the Union, temples and ancient cathedrals were ruined, monuments of wooden architecture were burned, shrines were destroyed. It is thanks to the selfless work of the artist that many architectural monuments of Ukraine have been preserved and put on the UNESCO list today.
Yuriy Khymych absorbed the achievements of world art and at the same time was deeply rooted in the national culture of Ukraine, very close to the master. Without a doubt, his work was influenced by the processes that inspired many artists of his generation. Yuriy Khymych is a unique phenomenon, bright and original, a separate planet in the big galaxy of world art of the second half of the twentieth century.