Background
Petrytsky was born in Kiev, Russian Empire (today Ukraine), on January 31, 1895, to the family of a railway worker.
Moscow, Russian Federation
From 1922 to 1924 he was a student of the Vkhutemas (the Higher Art and Technical Studios).
Anatol Petrytsky in the 1930s.
Anatol Petrytsky in the late 1910s.
Petrytsky was born in Kiev, Russian Empire (today Ukraine), on January 31, 1895, to the family of a railway worker.
Anatol Petrytsky studied at the Kyiv Art School between 1912 and 1917, and, concurrently, in the studio of Oleksandr Murashko. From 1922 to 1924 he was a student of the Vkhutemas (the Higher Art and Technical Studios), the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas. There he studied under the supervision of Aleksandr Drevin, a Latvian painter, and Nadezhda Udaltsova, a Russian avant-garde artist.
Petrytsky worked as a stage designer at the Molodyi Teatr (now the Kiev Academic Young Theatre) from 1916 till 1919, and later also at the Shevchenko First Theater of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater. Simultaneously, he created a number of paintings during these years. Petrytsky’s early works, particularly his paintings, were influenced by Cubism and Futurism. As a stage designer, he was an adherent of theatrical conventionality and readily employed Ukrainian traditional print and ornamentation.
Artworks of this period were created in the style of the Soviet avant-garde, typical of that time. The image was built by the artist in such a way as to identify the most characteristic features of the portrait and, through them, to reveal the human nature.
In 1925-1941 he continued to design in Ukrainian operatic and drama theatres in Kharkiv, Kiev, and Odessa. In Les Kurbas’s staging of Vertep in Molodyi Teatr, he produced stylized costumes for actors who appeared in the puppet show. In Ostap Vyshnia's Vii, staged at the Franko New Drama Theater, he united screens with stylized costumes.
Starting from 1930 he focused mostly on designing for opera and ballet (Mykola Lysenko’s Taras Bulba, Kostiantyn Dankevych’s Lileia [The Lily], and Modest Mussorgsky’s Sorochyntsi Fair). Even under pressure to follow the norms of socialist realism, he preserved a national colouring in his theatre and dance work.
Petrytsky was also a well-known portrait master. For instance, he painted a renowned series consisted of over 150 portraits of the leading Ukrainian cultural figures in the 1920s and 1930s, including the portrait of Miturich (1924). However, most of these artworks were destroyed in the 1930s by the Soviet authorities.
Anatol Petrytsky also designed sets for performances in the Moscow Bolshoi and Malyi theatres; in 1942-1943 in the Opera Theater in Alma-Ata, and in 1945-1959 in the Kiev Theater of Opera and Ballet. Besides, he excelled his skills in landscape painting and graphic art. Albums of his works were published in Kiev in 1968 and 1991.
An Eccentric Dance
(Sketch for the Ballet Miniature of the Choreographer K. G...)
Old Slave
(Sketch for Lesya Ukrainka's Play 'In the Catacombs'.)
Militiaman and Merchant
(Sketch of Costumes for the Play 'Footballer')
Prince Igor
(A Sketch for the Opera 'Prince Igor' by A. Borodin.)
Sketch of the Costume of Tai Hoi for the Play 'Red Poppy'
Sketch of Costumes for G. Puccini's Opera 'Turandot'
Costume design for Turandot
Franko New Drama Theater Ostap Vyshnia Vii
Franko New Drama Theater: Schiller Don Carlos
Costume design for a warrior from The Sacrifice of Atoraga
Costume design
Costume design for Sorochinsky Fair
Costume design for Prince Igor
Costume design for Solopii Cherevik from a production of Sorochinsky Fair
Le Musicien