On January 14, 2020, O.O.Osmerkin Museum hosted an interesting art event on St. Basil's Day when the Old Style New Year is celebrated. Those who visited the museum were greeted by the museum director Vita Chernova and the head of the Regional Organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine Andrii Khvorost, whose fathers’ names are both Vasyl. The guests found themselves in a winter garden presented at the exhibition “Flowers in the midst of Winter”.
    Humankind has always adored every stem. According to the ancient beliefs, sacral traditions connected with the plants must bring good health, household welfare, land fertility, and happiness. Flowers surround us throughout our life. They serve as amulets on our national clothes, vyshyvanka, and on rushnyks, symbolizing life and procreation.
    The floral still lifes framed in winter landscapes presented at the exhibition brightly reproduce special, unique coloristics of Ukrainian sunny palette being born by the blue sky and fragrant steppe and give a joyful atmosphere of the holiday season filled with the victory of light over the darkness, good over the evil, faith over ignorance, beauty over ugliness, and it means victory of love and life.
T    he exposition of the exhibition is comprised of more than 60 paintings, graphic art and decorative works from the museum collection “Modern Ukrainian Fine Art”. And, remarkably, the first exhibition of the New Year is dedicated to the 35thanniversary of the museum foundation.
    The authors of the works created between the 1970s and modern times are both famous and well-known artists and young painters from our town as well as from Odesa, Dnipro, and Kharkiv. The majority of them are the laureates of the Regional Awards in Fine Art and Study of Art names after Oleksandr Osmerkin and in Architecture, Heraldry, Vexillology, and Decorative and Applied Art named after Yakiv Pauchenko.
    The works by the following artists were exhibited: the People’s Artists of Ukraine Mykhailo Nadezhdin and Anatolii Horbenko, Merited Artists of Ukraine Serhii Shapovalov, Anatolii Yaniev, Feliks Polonskyi, Andrii Nadezhdin, Nelia Firsova, Anatolii and Halyna Kravchenko, Merited Cultural Worker of Ukraine Vasyl Khvorost, members of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine Anatolii Shapovalov, Yurii Honcharenko, Olha Kolomiiets, Oleksandr Firsov, Yurii Vintenko, Oleksandr and Liudmyla Demydenko, Olha Punhina, Andrii Kadyhrob, Anatolii Kimnatnyi, a member of the National Union of Folk Art Artists of Ukraine LarysaHarbuzenko, a member of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine Iryna Kukharenko, painters HalynaYarova-Vinteko, Larysa Yakovleva, Volodymyr Ostroukhov, Oleksandr Vasylenko, Maryna Skabolkina, and a master of art-quilling LiudmylaKryvenko. The works brightly reflect the creative preferences of each artist as well as general traits of the development of modern Ukrainian visual art. Making the best of limitless possibilities of harmony of color, lines, material, and textures, artists help us to discover the beauty of nature.
    The gem of the vernissage became a performance of Christmas carols by the folk band “Mlynochok” from the museum of musical culture named after Karol Shymanovskyi headed by the museum director Oleksandr Poliachok. The participants of the group congratulated everybody present on the beginning of the Old Style New Year with the old ceremonial songs which were recorded from around our steppe land region.
    The pupils from Musical School No.1 named after Heinrich Neuhaus headed by the school principal Yevheniia Maliavkina took over the stage. They presented a festive Christmas play with the carols to the staff of the town museums and pupils of School of Art named after O.O.Osmerkin who came together with the deputy principleOlenaPryimachenko to explore the new exhibition.
    This is the creative way for the museum to start its jubilee year with vernissage and carols and to present pictorial flowers and winter holiday melodies to the worshipers of visual art.