Background

Murashko was born in Kiev, Ukraine, on August 26, 1875. His stepfather, Oleksandr Ivanovych Murashko, had an icon-painting workshop and he also worked on the interior of St Volodymyr's Cathedral.

Education

Oleksandr Murashko studied at the Kiev Drawing School from 1891 to 1894. In 1894, with recommendations from several prominent artists, he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts (now Ilya Repin St. Petersburg State Academic Institute for Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture) in St Petersburg. There he studied under Ilya Repin, graduating in 1900. The artist was awarded the Academy’s gold medal in 1900 for his diploma painting Burial of a Kish Otaman. As part of the prize, Murashko was sent to study in Paris between 1902 and 1904; later he also studied at the Munich Academy of Arts.

Career

Murashko participated in the New Society of Artists annual exhibitions in Saint Petersburg between 1904 and 1914. In 1907 the artist settled in Kiev, where he taught painting at the Kiev Art School from 1909 to 1912. In 1909 he exhibited his canvases in Paris, Amsterdam, and at the international exhibition in Munich. In 1910 two of his artworks, Sunday: Quiet Sadness (1909) and On a Terrace (1906), were presented at the international exhibition in Venice. The same year he had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Köln, and Düsseldorf. Starting from 1911 he exhibited with the Munich Sezession group.

In 1913 he managed to open his own studio. In 1916 Oleksandr Murashko became a founding member of the Kyiv Society of Artists. He was a co-founder of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts in 1917 and held the posts of a professor and rector.

Murashko's style gradually developed from the Realism of the Peredvizhniki school into a vivid, colourful Impressionism. His paintings and portraits were praised by critics for their psychological depth. His well known works include, Girl with a Red Hat (1902-1903), portraits of Hryhorii Tsyss (late 1890s), T. Yazera (1901-1904), Jan Stanisławski (1906), Day at Rest (1911), Peasant Family (1914), Washerwoman (1914), and Woman with Nasturtiums (1918).

Achievements

• 

  Oleksandr Murashko established an international reputation and had a great impact on the development of Ukrainian portraiture in the 20th century. He has been called "the most important Ukrainian artist of the turn of the century."
  
  His painting Carousel won the gold medal at the international exhibition in Munich in 1909. Murashko exhibited his works in numerous European galleries and museums, including those in Amsterdam, Venice, Rome, Berlin, Cologne, and Düsseldorf.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Girl in a Red Hat

  • Portrait of Elena Prahova

  • Peasant Family

  • Georgy Schleifer

  • The Annunciation

  • Portrait of Leon Benois

  • Adrian Prakhov

  • Laundress

  • Tatyana

  • Sketch for the Painting Carousel

  • Portrait of Margaryta Murashko

  • Woman with Flowers

  • The Woman in Black

  • Olga Prakhova in Masquerade Dress

  • Portrait of Mykola Petrov

  • Carousel

  • Portrait of Liudmila Kuksina

  • Flower Sellers

  • Near a Cafe

  • Self Portrait

  • Old Teacher. Portrait of Mykola Murashko

  • Girl at a Table

  • Winter

  • Self Portrait

  • Burial of a Kish Otaman

  • Portrait of Jan Stanislawski

  • By the Pond. Portrait of Margaryta Murashko

  • At the Skating Rink

  • The Funeral

  • Girl

  • Girl in a Pink Blouse

Politics

Oleksandr Murashko was a patriotic Ukrainian.

Views

Murashko was one of the adherents of the "Young Muse", a movement started in 1906 by Modernists, whose main aim was to make Ukrainian art more progressive.

Membership

Murashko belonged to the New Society of Artists in Saint Petersburg. In 1916 he joined the Peredvizhniki society.

• Peredvizhniki society , Russian Federation

  1916

Connections

stepfathe:

Oleksandr Ivanovych Murashko

Uncle:

Mykola Murashko

References

• Kiev: Architectural Landmarks and Art Museums An Illustrated Guide.
  1987
• The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation The most acute, informed, and up-to-date account available today of Ukraine and its people, now in its fourth edition.
  2000
• Theories of the Avant-Garde Theatre: A Casebook from Kleist to Camus In Theories of the Avant-Garde Theatre: A Casebook from Kleist to Camus, commentary by such seminal figures as Antonin Artaud, André Breton, Alfred Jarry, Luigi Pirandello, August Strindberg, and others are featured here. Their writings illuminate a desire to wrench dramatic art out of all of its old habits and create a new, distinctive, and freestanding theatrical vocabulary.
  2013
• Ukraine. A Concise Encyclopedia The material in the original three-volume set, published in Ukrainian in 1949, has been translated, revised, and supplemented withup-to-date material by a number of prominent research scholars from the USA and Canada. The revised text has been carefully checked by experts in each field of study. The contents of Volume II consist of sections on law, church, scholarship, education, libraries, publishing, arts, music, theatre and cinema, national economy, health, armed forces, and Ukrainians abroad.
  1971