Background
Vasyl Sedlyar was born on April 12, 1899 in Zhorzhivka, Poltava Gubernia, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine).
During the period from 1930 to 1936, Vasyl held the post of a teacher at the National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture in Kiev, Ukraine.
graphic artist illustrator painter
Vasyl Sedlyar was born on April 12, 1899 in Zhorzhivka, Poltava Gubernia, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine).
In 1915, Sedlyar enrolled at the Kyiv Art School, where he studied until 1919, when he entered the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine and studied under the guidance of Mykhailo Boichuk. In 1922, Vasyl graduated from the Academy.
In 1919, Vasyl collaborated with the team, that decorated, under Boichuk's direction, the Lutsk regimental army barracks in Kyiv, which were destroyed in 1922. Two years later, together with Oksana Pavlenko and other painters, he executed murals on the walls of auditoriums of the Kyiv Institute of Plastic Arts. In 1934, these frescoes were destroyed.
In 1923, Sedlyar was appointed a director of the Mezhyhiria Ceramics Tekhnikum, a post he held till 1930, when he started to work as a teacher at Kyiv State Art Institute (present-day National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture). Vasyl held the position of a teacher until 1936.
Also, during the period from 1926 to 1927, together with Mykhailo Boychuk, Sedlyar visited Germany and France and created a series of paintings entitled "Europe", which were sharply criticized by Communist Party critics.
Under the increasing pressure from Communist Party, in the mid-1930s Sedlyar incorporated into his works elements of socialist realism, but this did not save him from persecution. He was arrested on November 26, 1936, charged with terrorist activity and later executed together with Boichuk and Ivan Padalka. Following his execution, the majority of his creative works, including thousands of paintings, were destroyed by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs).
Illustration to the "Kobzar" by Taras Shevchenko
Portrait of Olena Pavlenko
Likbez
Illustration to the "Kobzar" by Taras Shevchenko
Shooting
On a Barnyard
Illustration to the "Kobzar" by Taras Shevchenko
Illustration to the "Kobzar" by Taras Shevchenko
Illustration to the "Kobzar" by Taras Shevchenko
As an art critic, Sedlyar opposed the official Soviet theory, that argued the crucial influence of the Peredvizhniki movement and Russian realist painting in general on the development of Ukrainian art.
Vasyl Sedlyar was one of the founders and key leaders of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine.