The exposition of the themed exhibition “Volodymyr Fedorov: the artist and time” dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the artist consists of paintings and graphic works of a well-known painter of our town Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Fedorov from the museum collection Modern Ukrainian Visual Art, and also unique original photographs and documents of the artist that were given to the museum by his widow Nina Heorhiivna Fedorova. The most noticeable items are family photographs, a letter from the painter to his mother from the line written on January 23, 1944, and copies of postal cards from Henrich Neuhaus and his mother Olha Mykhailivna dated by the 1930s.
    Fedorov Volodymyr Oleksandrovych (07.02.1920 – 25.08.1986) was born in the town of Yelisavethrad (now Kropyvnytskyi). In 1940, graduated from Odesa Art College. A participant of the Second World War was awarded orders and medals. Since 1978, a member of the Union of Artists of USSR. Was an active participant of all-Union, republican, and regional art exhibitions. The heritage of the artist consists of more than one thousand paintings and graphic works that are kept in Kirovohrad Regional Art Museum, O.O.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum, Museum of Musical Culture named after K.Shymanovskyi, Literary and Memorial Museum of I.Karpenko-Karyi, and private collections.
    The life and work of the painter were complicated and thorny. His childhood and youth were spent in the house that was located near the townhouse of famous composers Gustav and Olha Neuhaus because his grandmother worked there as a housekeeper. This family had a great influence on the worldview of the future artist. Gustav Neuhaus was the first to note absolute ear in V.Fedorov and advised him to study music seriously after he had finished musical school in piano class. But the love of drawing won. The first lessons in painting V.Fedorov got from the sister of G.Neuhaus’s wife – Dora Przhshykhovska, a graduate of Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
    V.Fedorov belongs to the generation affected by war; he participated in battles from the very start because in 1940 he started to serve in Red Army after graduating from Art College. He was discharged only in 1947. He had his notebook and pencil with him throughout the war. After returning to the native town, V.Fedorov worked as a painter in the Local History Museum and then in Art and Industrial Studios.
    The jubilee exhibition presents more than 40 studies of different years. Among them are numerous landscapes including a sketch with a pencil from the frontline notebook of 1944, sceneries of the native town, floral still lifes, self-portraits, and portraits of different people – mother, grandmother, wife, created in the 1950s. A portrait gallery of the soviet youth of the mid-1970s created in watercolor technique is an interesting object in terms of art and history. It reconstructs the time when a painter lived and worked, celebrating beauty and grandeur of peaceful life with love to the native land and belief in a good future for the next generations.