Yakym Levych

Yakym Levych (1933–2019) was a painter, graphic artist, and member of the National Artists Union of Ukraine.

The future artist was born in Kamianets-Podilsky in 1933. He graduated from Kyiv Art Institute (1964). Yakym Levych worked as a graphic artist and illustrator for Veselka (Rainbow) Publishing House, and in 1974, he became a chief painter of the magazine Maliatko (Baby). In 1967, the artist became a member of the Artists Union of Ukraine. Yakym Levych died in Kyiv in 2019. 

Yakym Levuch’s name is related to the 1960–80s Ukrainian underground. Early in the mid-1950s, the artist developed his concept of painting, which connected genre features of the plot with multi-layered tonal colour painting and complex art spaciousness. Since Levych’s unique artistic manner, metaphorical imagery, and themes of paintings were far from the ideals of socialist realism, he gained a status of an “unofficial” painter. From 1970 to 1985, his works were not exhibited in the Soviet Union.

Yakym Levych (together with his son Oleksandr and the architect Yurii Paskevych) is the author of the Menorah monument at Babyn Yar in Kyiv (1991). The works of Yakym Levych are kept in the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv History Museum, funds of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and the Artists Union of Ukraine, as well as private collections in Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, the United States, Britain, Israel, and Germany.  

The art collection of the Center contains four paintings of Yakym Levych: Brzezinski (portrait, no date), The Railroader’s Day (A Folk Instruments Ensemble of a Railway Station) (genre scene, no date), a un undated landscape, and The Pharmacy (landscape, 2015).