The new exhibition year in the halls of the Yosyp Bokshai Transcarpathian Regional Art Museum began with a personal retrospective of artworks by Petro Sholtes, who has been aptly named by an art critic Mykhailo Syrokhman as the “the last Romantic” in the city on Uzh. The event is timed with the artist’s 70th birthday, which he celebrated a few months ago.
Among the 80 paintings and graphic works on display there are portraits, still lifes, Carpathian and Tysa landscapes, depictions of Transcarpathian wooden churches and of unique places in old Uzhhorod, most of which now exist only in the art of the artist. “I love to paint the old city, because I grew up here. I spent my childhood and youth years at the Drugeth Street. In the neighborhood lived the pillars of the Transcarpathian school of painting: Yosyp Bokshai, Fedir Manailo, Havrylo Hliuk, Anton Kashshai. I had heard of them and often met them in the city, looking at them as though they were gods. And I carry the love for my hometown with me through my life,” said the master.
“The artworks of Petro Sholtes, regardless of the time they were created, are full of sincerity. They are bright, genuine, and often nostalgic,” says Olena Prykhodko, art critic. “He has a very broad circle of artistic interest. He began with landscapes, then mastered still life, portrait, narrative composition, and gradually moved to interior decoration – the latter being unfairly ignored by many artists. For him, it is an occasion for a philosophical reflection and for the emotional fulfillment of the canvas. By means of his cheerful nature, the artist fills his works, and the viewers, with positive emotions...”
The exhibition will be open through early February.
