June 21, 2019, is a traditional Doors Open Day in O.O.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum, so that the visitors can discover the museum exposition. This year Doors Open Day is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the museum.
    The museum has two birthdays – the day of its foundation, May 29, 1985, and the day it welcomed visual art worshipers – June 21, 1994.
    The first to congratulate the museum was Larysa Khosiainova, the H.T director of Ivan Karpenko-Kary Literature and Memorial Museum, who accentuated the creativeness of the museum and its individual style and wished the realization of creative plans and art-projects.
    The museum got art presents on this festive day. A famous artist, member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, Yurii Vintenko gave to the museum collection the author’s painting “Festive study”. The painting has a museum story from the very moment of its creation, because it had been started during the traditional art workshop within the art event “A Visit to the Museum” to International Museum Day last year, the mission statement of which was “Floral still life by Ukrainian artists”. The event was dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. It was exhibited within the all-Ukrainian Cultural and Art project “Picturesque Ukraine” that was successfully held in our town and presented in the art catalog compiled by the Directorate of Exhibition of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
    It should be mentioned that “Art Workshops” is a joint project of the museum and the Department of Visual Arts of the Children’s School of Arts headed by an experienced pedagogue and a talented painter Yurii Vintenko. Each year the workshop becomes more and more popular, engaging students from art educational institutions.
    In gratitude for creative cooperation and to remember the anniversary, Vita Chernova, the museum director, presented Yurii Vintenko with the museum souvenirs – a branded cup with a colored photo of the museum building and a postcard, printed in 2009 to the 15th anniversary of the museum opening, depicting the commemorative medal “Oleksandr Osmerkin” by a famous Ukrainian artist – medallist Viacheslav Popov.
    Mykhailo Volodymyrovych Nadezhdin, People’s Artist of Ukraine, presented the museum with “Bondarivske. The village of Rozumivka” – a landscape created at the summer plein-air in 2012 in Oleksandrivka district, Kirovohrad Region, in an interesting area where the Cathedral of the Elevation of the Holy Cross is located. It is the place where General of the Cavalry, 1812 war hero, Mykola Raievskyi, and his grandson, also war colonel, are buried. The church is a heritage-listed building of the National Cultural Heritage of Ukraine. Mykhailo Volodymyrovych has announced his pictorial present earlier when he visited the exhibition “Summer Vernissage” dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the opening of the museum to the visitors. He presented the painting to the exposition of the exhibition. The painting was delivered by his son, Andrii Nadezhdin, Merited Artist of Ukraine, a professional art expert, who has been working in the museum as a leading researcher. This art present is also a symbolic one, because the talented artist, social activist, pedagogue, the first head of the Regional Organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, and earlier as a leading artist of Kirovohrad Art and Industrial Studios of Art Fund of the Ukrainian SSR, was a member of the initiative group on the establishment of O.O.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum. The artist also supported all the initiatives of the museum after its opening.
    The artists and the museum staff have been sharing memories of the opening day and the widow of the artist Nadiia Heorhiivna Osmerkina, who was among the initiators of the museum foundation and came to our town many times. Also, before the museum opening, she gave paintings and graphic works by O.O.Osmerkin, the artist’s archive, and his personal items, including items for creative work – easel, palette, sketch-book, brushes, items for still lifes creation, to the museum.
     That is how the silver jubilee was celebrated by the museum.