Danylo Narbut lived in Cherkasy for 33 years. First he worked in the Cherkasy Taras Shevchenko Theater, then retired and painted a lot. The memorial museum promised to open one large room of changing exhibits. Besides, the museum has a room dedicated to Danylo Narbut’s father, outstanding graphic and heraldry artist Heorhii Narbut. Rare photos and documents are collected there. Another room presents Danylo Narbut as a stage designer demonstrating his theater playbills and sketches for costumes.
“By the way, Danylo Narbut used to go to the theater sewing workshop and watched how they created costumes using his sketches. My daughter Lesia still has costumes created with his grandfather’s sketches. She wore them for children’s matinees at pre-school,” Danylo Narbut’s daughter-in-law Tetiana Shadrina recalled.
The museum inauguration was attended by many young admirers of Danylo Narbut’s creative work. It is no coincidence, since the children’s art school named after him is situated opposite the museum.
According to the director of the Cherkasy Oblast Art Museum Olha Hladun, there are over 50 master’s works in the Narbut Memorial Museum. However, the museum owns only two thirds of them and the rest belong to artist’s granddaughter Lesia Narbut.
“There are a lot of objects, photographs and works in the museum holdings. We are planning to exhibit all of them but a bit later, maybe in half a year,” Olha Hladun said and emphasized that the exhibit will be renewed by Danylo Narbut’s birthday on January 22.
The local artists are looking forward to seeing the renewed exhibit and the series called Flowers of Ukraine. These are 35 paintings given by Danylo Narbut to Cherkasy in 1998. However, the artist just announced that gift during the exhibit opening in the art museum and did not leave any documents. His granddaughter Lesia Narbut used it and adjudged the whole series from the city authorities. Now the paintings are owned by her. As the director of the museum Olha Hladun explained to The Day, she had seen all the paintings and people will also see them in a while. “However, all the works have to be restored and get new frames since they have been kept in inappropriate conditions and are flaking off now,” Hladun remarked.
