Yurii Novykov, an original Ukrainian artist and Shevchenko Prize winner died a year ago. The master passed away in the heyday of his creative activity, and now his friends and family continue to implement his dreams and art projects. Novykov died suddenly after a jazz concert in the Radiansky Jazz (Soviet Jazz) Club, which he also founded.
LIFE IN THE RHYTHM OF JAZZ
Novykov dedicated 25 years of his life to designing books (250 books designed by him were published in this period). Following the Chornobyl Power Plant disaster he worked with his photojournalist on the site of the accident, which resulted in a book A Report from Chornobyl. In his last years Yurii took up painting. He is among the founding fathers of the creative association of artists, New&Mat. He was a board member of the Art Vist Klub. Novykov took part in 40 exhibits and art projects in Ukraine and abroad. Over 500 works of the artist are kept in various galleries, museums and private collections: the Ukrainian State Museum of Book Art; the RF National Union of Artists; private collections and galleries in Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Poland, Australia, the UK, France, the US, Monaco, Canada, as well as in the private archives of Jerzy Hoffman (Warsaw), the Brzezinski family (Washington), and Guy Chipman’s collection (San Antonio, Texas).
Jazz was a long-time passion of the artist. Novykov listened to it during times when in the former USSR they used to say: “You play jazz today, you betray your fatherland tomorrow.” Incidentally, in 1962 live jazz was played for the first time in Kyiv’s cafe Mria, on Leontovycha Street. Before then people in the Soviet Union would listen to jazz secretly at night, on radios on which the “enemy voices” could not be heard distinctly. It was not easy to catch the frequency, as radio broadcasts were jammed. Not only did Yurii collect a whole range of jazz musicians’ and jazz singers’ works, rare films featuring the masters of jazz, he also listened to the music while painting. Maybe it was not without reason that he created works and even series of works that are not just a play of colors, but are also full of improvisation and jazz-style findings, like in the project Jam Session Art (ISA).
Friends liked to visit Novykov’s studio in Kyiv’s Pechersk District, where guests were always welcome. Everyone could find warm words of friendship there and be treated to a cup of tea. And the studio, located under the very roof of the house, faced the Dnipro and its left bank.
A whole “pack” of masterfully executed smiling jazz cats met the guests on the stairs. They were the work of Patricia Tokav-Sedh, Novykov’s student. Every feline had its own character. They were all charismatic and resembled their prototypes, jazz performers, both masters of jazz — fat cats, and soloists — tender felines.
PARAJANOV’S COMB AND NOVYKOV’S FORK
The first thing you noticed as you entered the studio is Yurii’s portrait painted by Serhii Parajanov. Novykov had given shelter to the disgraced film director, when the latter was banned from visiting Kyiv after being released from prison.
Improvisation was always characteristic of Parajanov. Once he offered Yurii: “Let’s paint each other with things with which we have an energy connection every day.” Parajanov painted Yurii with a comb, and Novykov made a beau geste in return, painting Parajanov with a fork. One day Parajanov took a mirror from the pocket of his trousers, looked in the mirror, and then covered it with paint. He gave it to Yurii, saying: “Whenever you want to see me, peel off the paint.” When the great film director, an Armenian, who was born in Georgia and served a sentence in jail for “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism,” died, Yurii did not peel off the paint to see Parajanov’s face. He kept it in his memory and later painted 47 portraits of Parajanov. They have been on display at a vernissage in Germany. Many portraits were sold and scattered all over the world, enriching private collections.
Novykov had lots of friends. Proof of this is the number of people who attended the commemoration evening. They included artists, poets, and jazz musicians. The foyer featured an exhibit of his paintings, and in the hall jazz melodies intertwined with touching recollections of his friends and family. The organizer of the event, the Radiansky Jazz Club, showed two films about Novykov. One of them was shot during his lifetime, and the second one was The Broken Jazz of Yurii Novykov, which was recently shot by Oleksandr Sparynsky, after the artist’s death. This film was shown on the Kultura TV channel. But the TV audience saw an abridged version, which lacked an interesting and very important moment of the artist’s life. Indeed, he made his way not thanks to, but in spite of his fate and family. Once, when speaking about ruining historical buildings in the heart of Kyiv, Novykov showed his family photos and told the sad story of his family.
MERCHANT’S HOUSE
Yurii was the grandson of a famous merchant Ivan Novykov, one of the capital’s rich and powerful. His grandfather’s house, located in Podil District (at the corner of Kostiantynivska and Verkhnii Val streets), has been preserved. In Soviet times, it was turned into the House of Pioneers, later a registry office, and then a cafe. The house was built in 1893 (it is now considered an architectural monument) based on the design of the renowned architect Kazansky. The archives still preserve the design of the building’s facade and two stories. A unique home theater was designed to be located on the first floor, near two living rooms. There was also a wonderful library in the house, and a grand piano stood in one of the living rooms. Great attention was paid to the education of the younger generation (the family raised 12 children). All of them were taught music. There were two more pianos in the house.
The Novykovs, a merchant family, were well known not only in Kyiv, but throughout the Russian Empire. Before the revolution almost the entire Podil district belonged to Novykov brothers, merchants of second guild Ivan and Opanas, who dealt with logging and fishing on the Volga River. Their steamers were docked in Astrakhan. And they had logging storehouses and fishing stocks in Prypiat and Kyiv’s Podil District. Besides, the brothers owned houses and land in the north of Ukraine, in Belarus, and Russia.
Yurii’s grandfather was the City Duma’s functionary and took offices in self-government commissions, i.e., land, city lighting and road maintenance commissions. He was member of the sanitary council and regular general council on managing Dehtiariov’s charity institutions. St. Seraphim’s Church was built in Pushcha-Vodytsia for the Novykov’s money, as was a church parish school and hospital. Ivan Novykov was the warden of the Saint Nicholas’ Church in Podil and honorary church banner carrier of Moscow’s Great Dormition Cathedral. This saved his life during the October Revolution in 1917. The parishioners of Podil Church hid Ivan, his wife and children from the Bolsheviks (Yurii’s father Heorhii was born in 1915), thus saving the family from execution. At the same time the Bolsheviks shot his brother Opanas without trial or investigation, in the courtyard of his house, located near Ivan’s house, and confiscated shortly before then.
Yurii preserved the yellowed photos in memory of the house: a fir-tree in the central room and happy smiling children, portraits of his relatives, old documents, copies of archival documents, and even greeting cards. His grandfather, Ivan, was a connoisseur of music, painting, literature, and theater. He never missed an opera premiere, and famous artistes would frequently visit his house. Children were aware of all local events; they issued a family magazine and even a family weekly newspaper. Yurii’s father loved to paint. This was his biggest passion after theater. Yurii Novykov kept an album of his grandfather sketches of his contemporaries. Yurii’s father and younger brother, Heorhii and Oleksandr, also liked to paint.
In 2002, in the abandoned and half-ruined building, which used to be a cozy family home, Yurii held a soiree in commemoration of his father. According to the old family tradition to invite actors to family festive events, he invited Bohdan Stupka, a close friend of the family, famous actor and the then minister of culture. Later Novykov painted his portrait and gave him a letter that his father had never sent. What were Yurii’s father’s wishes? Did he ask to return the house to his sons? After all the Rurikids now claim the Kyiv Cave Monastery and Golden Gates. No, the letter carried another request. Heorhii Novykov asked to preserve the house, which was a monument of architecture.
