Virtual personal exhibition of painting and graphic works of the famous Ukrainian artist, People's Artist of Ukraine Mykhailo Nadezhdin "With Faith in Life!" is presented for the International Day of Museums (May 18) as part of the cultural and artistic educational campaign "Museum Guests", dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the birth of the artist and teacher Oleksandr Osmerkin.
    During the new war of the 21st century, the brutal aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, this exhibition with the iconic title "With Faith in Life!" is especially relevant, convincingly symbolizing the affirmation of the victory of the power of life and good over evil, love over hatred, birth over death.
    Mykhailo Volodymyrovych Nadezhdin was born on May 18, 1935 in the village of Kostyantynivtsi, Sumy Oblast. He spent his childhood and youth in the city of Bilopillya.
Graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk State Art School (1962). Moved to the city of Kirovohrad, now Kropyvnytskyi (1963). He worked as a teacher at a children's art school (1963-1973), a designer (1973-1982) and the main artist (1982-1989) of the Kirovohrad art and production workshops of the Art Fund of the Ukrainian SSR.
    Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (1988). Honored Artist of Ukraine (1994). People's Artist of Ukraine (1997). The first laureate of the Oleksandr Osmerkin regional award in the field of fine arts and art history in the nomination "newest directions" (2005). Chairman of the board of the Kirovohrad regional organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (1989-2015). Deputy of the Kirovohrad Regional Council (2006-2011).
    Participant of numerous all-Ukrainian, international and foreign exhibitions. Personal exhibitions and exhibitions of the works of the Nadezhdin family - People's Artist of Ukraine Mykhailo Nadezhdin and his son, Honored Artist of Ukraine Andriy Nadezhdin, and daughter of a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine Oksana Zhuravel (Nadezhdina) have been repeatedly exhibited in the O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum and the Art Museum in Kropyvnytskyi , the Cherkasy Regional Museum of Local Lore, the Central House of the Artist of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, the Kyiv Gallery "ABC-Art", the Sumy City Gallery, the Museum of Ukrainian Painting in Dnipro.
    The works are in the collections of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, regional art museums in Sumy, Dnipro, Cherkasy, the art museum and the O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum in Kropyvnytskyi, Directorate of exhibitions of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, in private collections in Ukraine and abroad.
    As Doctor of Art Studies, full member of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Professor Oleksandr Fedoruk notes: "Mykhailo Nadezhdin is a unique Ukrainian artist, the People's Artist of Ukraine, whose creative practice has an impact on the development of modern art culture. From the active formation of the 60s through the lyricism of the 70s and 80s, the master achieved the harmony of the unity of the planetary vision and the immediacy of everyday life, preserving the spirit of the folk worldview, and created majestic images of a philosophical direction."
    The exposition of the current exhibition consists of sixty paintings and graphic works from the author’s collection of the artist, including those that, unfortunately, have not survived and their image exists only in photo reproductions, and from the funds of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Cherkasy Regional Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and of the O.O.Osmerkin Memorial Art Museum in Kropyvnytskyi, which vividly reflect the artist's creative pursuits from the 1960s to the present day, clearly demonstrating the movement of his artistic thought in understanding the role of expressiveness of form in order to achieve the creation of an artistic image, philosophical views on the understanding of beauty , harmony, the power of creative energy and the place of the creative person in the natural environment, which is constantly developing, despite the tragic events of ecological cataclysms and wars.
    The main theme of the exhibition is the image of a woman - the beloved and keeper of the family hearth, an unconditional symbol of beauty, a bearer of inexhaustible cosmic energy, an individual who can not only give birth to a new life, but also by the power of love to inspire creativity, the movement of art on the way to highlight the eternal theme of relations between men and a woman, as one of the fundamentals in the understanding of human nature and the development of the universe. The artist's numerous interpretations of this theme have a universal character, often taking on surprising forms, in which a realistic worldview and ancient symbolism are combined into a single inextricable tangle of color and graphic intricacies of bright emotional expressiveness. The constant model of female images in creative works has always been the artist's wife Vera. Her image can be found not only in numerous portraits, but also in plot-philosophical compositions, pictorial and graphic series - "Thoughts under burdock", "By the sea", "Flora and Fauna", "Two. Artist's spouse", "Masks", "Dream", "Nude", "Artist and model". The last composition, in particular, started a great intertemporal journey from the drawing of 1969 to the composition "Ukrainian Venus in Space and Time" of 2015-2017.
    Photos from the artist's family album are an organic addition to the exhibition.