These days Cherkasy residents are honoring the memory of Danylo Narbut, the son of the prominent graphic artist Heorhii Narbut, the People’s Painter of Ukraine, Shevchenko Prize winner, an honorary citizen of Cherkasy, where he lived for 33 years.
Danylo Narbut lineage dated back to an ancient Lithuanian noble family, whose members served Hetmans Sahaidachny and Mazepa. Throughout his adult life, he considered himself a staunch Ukrainian nationalist. He said at one of his exhibits that he had decided to join the UNA as a child in 1929, when his teacher Maria Tobilevych, the daughter of a well-known Ukrainian playwright, and all the teaching staff of the Kyiv Labor School were arrested as part of the Ukraine Liberation Union case.
His oeuvre mostly focused on ethnographic motifs and historical themes. The artist was awarded the Shevchenko Prize for the portrait series “Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s Fellow Fighters” and “Hetmans of Ukraine,” as well as for the philosophical and historical canvas The Last Judgment. In 1996-97 his works were exhibited in many regions of Ukraine with support from the UNA-UNSO. Audiences could see pictures of the series “At a Cherkasy Marketplace” and “My Friends, My Teachers.”
A number of events were held at the Cherkasy Regional Art Museum to mark the artist’s anniversary. Still in progress are an exhibit of works by pupils of the Cherkasy Danylo Narbut Art School and the exhibit “Flowers for Danylo Narbut” of works by pupils of the Gloria art studio. And the opening ceremony of an exhibit of People’s Painter Danylo Narbut’s own works was a conspicuous event to honor his memory.
According to Halyna Muraienko, deputy director of the Cherkasy Regional Art Museum, Narbut’s Cherkasy spell was the most fruitful and brilliant period in the artist’s life. The idea of theater and a personal vision of stage is the main feature in his works. He brought a high national fine-arts idea to the Cherkasy Theater. Narbut was a leading master of scenography. He designed about 250 productions at various theaters of Ukraine – a fifth of them on the Cherkasy stage. The artist also designed some original theatrical costumes. Theaters used the artist’s sketches to display not only the everyday life of an epoch, but also the inner world of stage heroes.
The artist’s oeuvre includes a gallery of the portraits of Ukrainian hetmans and colonels Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Bohun, Maksym Kryvonis, Lavrin Kapusta, and Antin Zhdanovych. It is a noticeable artistic contribution of Narbut to the revival of history. He conveys – rather interestingly and originally – the spirit of Zaporozhian liberty in the picture Elections of the Kish Otaman.
The last picture series, “Flowers of Ukraine,” aptly combines the symbols of images and convincingly describes the victory of good on Earth, which the Cherkasy Art Museum staff says is the leitmotif of the artist’s oeuvre.
On January 23, actors of the Cherkasy Regional Taras Shevchenko Music and Drama Theater showed Matchmaking in Honcharivka at the Oblast Philharmonic Society. This production is one of Danylo Narbut’s last works that display his bright and colorful sceneries and costumes.
