The exhibition of works by a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, Viktor
Frenchko, "Everything depends on the artist's talent..." is dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the
birth of the famous Ukrainian sculptor.
Frenchko Viktor Vasyliovych (August 6, 1949, Pidzamochok village, Buchatsky district,
Ternopil region - September 13, 2019, Kropyvnytskyi) is a famous Ukrainian sculptor.
Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (2012). Laureate
of the regional award in the field of fine arts and art history named after Oleksandr
Osmerkin in the nomination "national tradition" (2009). The first
laureate of the Borys Vintenko City Art Prize (2018).
After graduating from the Buchach Children's Art School, he continued his studies
at the T.H.Shevchenko Kyiv State Art School (1964-1967).
He graduated with honors from the Kyiv State Art Institute,
now the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture,
majoring in sculpture (1973), the workshop of People's Artist of the
USSR, Academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR Mykhailo Lysenko.
According to the distribution, he came to Kirovohrad, now Kropyvnytskyi,
worked in the Kirovohrad art and production plant of the Art Fund of Ukraine.
Participant of regional, republican and all-Ukrainian art exhibitions.
The works are stored in the Art Museum and O.O.Osmerkin Memorial Art Museum in
Kropyvnytskyi, private collections in Ukraine and abroad.
He is the author of a large number of works in various genres of monumental art - sculptural
compositions, busts, monuments, commemorative signs, memorial plaques. Monuments "Memorial
to the Red-Eyed Workers Who Died on the Fronts of the Great Patriotic War" and "The First Tram
in Yelisavethrad" in the city of Kropyvnytskyi, "Cossack-defender"
in the village. A merchant of the Novoarkhanhelsk district, the stele "Nadiia Tobilevich-Tarkovska"
in the State Reserve-Museum of I.K.Tobilevich (Karpenko-Karyi) "Khutir "Nadiia",
a bust of the poet and fighter for the independence of Ukraine Yevhen Malaniuk in the village of
Novoarkhanhelsk, and academician Kostiantyn Skriabin in t. Novomyrhorod,
Kirovohrad region, memorial plaques in Kropyvnytskyi:
to historical figures of the city mayor Oleksandr Pashutin, doctor Samuil Vaisenberh,
patroness Hanna Dmytrian, pianist Ferenc List, as well as contemporaries -
artists Borys Vintenko, Yurii Lutskevich and Vasyl Ostapenko, composers
Heinrich Neuhaus, Yulii Meitus and Karol Szymanowski, actor Valerii
Deinekin, poets Arsenii Tarkovskyi and Valerii Honcharenko, journalist
Vitalii Tsypin, photojournalist Vasyl Kovpak, historian Petro Kyzymenko,
fighter for the Independence of Ukraine Semen Soroka. This is an incomplete list of what the sculptor Victor
Frenchko created independently and in collaboration with his colleague, the sculptor Arkadii
Matsievskyi.
In 2016, on the occasion of the Artist's Day, the O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum
organized a cultural and artistic event in the creative workshop of the sculptor Viktor Frenchko,
located on one of the central streets of the city. One of the initiators of the event was the well-
known Krypynytskyi photographer Oleksandr Shuleshko, who proposed to combine two arts -
sculpture and photography, because in different years he used his camera lens to capture moments
of the life and work of his fellow sculptor Viktor Frenchko in his workshop.
During this unique creative event, the thematic catalog "Language of plastics. Viktor Frenchko is about life and art" as
part of the museum art project "In the artist's workshop" was presented. It was compiled by
the leading research fellow of the museum, Honored Artist of Ukraine Andrii
Nadiezhdin (1963-2022), who, characterizing the art history aspect of
Viktor Frenchko's sculptural compositions in the context of the history of development of
Ukrainian fine art in general and monumental art in particular,
interviewed the artist and published it in the catalog. To the museum question
of the scientist "Are you closer to small forms of sculpture or monumental ones?", Victor
Frenchko answered without hesitation: "It's the same for me. In both
cases, the amount of time spent on solving an artistic idea is not
limited. Creative forces are connected with emotions. Therefore, in fact - it does
not matter. Now they ask, what is easier to work with - for an order or for yourself?
But it's all for yourself, everything goes through you. Of course, sculpture needs
material embodiment, you can't just hide it in a closet, of course there is a desire for
a large form, so sculptors work in squares and in cemeteries. Here,
take the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, it is not only a place of memory, it is a museum,
and what masters worked there. Everything depends on the talent and ability of the artist."
And in October 2019, the presentation of the thematic exhibition "City of Artists. It is
dedicated to the memory of the architect Yakiv Pauchenko and the sculptor Viktor Frenchko" was held at the
O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum. This is how Andrii Nadiezhdin, a leading researcher at the
museum and an Honored Artist of Ukraine, wrote about it in one of his articles: "As part of the
museum's art project "Exhibition of One Work," in the hall where the
photo exhibition "Architect Yakiv Pauchenko and His City" is on display, dedicated to the
265th anniversary of the founding of Kropyvnytskyi, a portrait of Yakiv
Pauchenko by the famous Ukrainian sculptor Viktor Frenchko
(1949-2019) was presented. The artist created it on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the
architect's birth and donated it to the museum's collection in 2017... The artist worked on the
portrait of the architect Yakiv Pauchenko for more than a year - he
got acquainted with the peculiarities of his life, studied rare photographic materials from the
museum's funds, and repeatedly brought sketches and sculptural
sketches of the future portrait for discussion with experts on the architect's life. The result
was a lively, emotional, marked by artistic sophistication and even
some outrageous image of the creator of our city, about whom the newspaper "Voice of the South"
in 1914 wrote that "he gave the first lessons of artistic architecture in our
city"... Executed in the classical form of a medallion, the bas-relief profile of the architect in
an imposing hat, according to the author's intention, reflects the image of a creator,
full of artistic ideas, creative searches, original artistic
discoveries and optimistic hopes for the future of the Art Nouveau era, illuminated by the ideas
of scientific and technological progress, in which Yakiv Pauchenko lived and worked. The author
himself, speaking at a meeting with museum researchers about his choice of the form of
the portrait image, noted that when looking at photos from different years, his attention was
drawn to several pictures of Yakiv Pauchenko, in particular with his family in the courtyard of
his house, with his nephew Oleksandr Osmerkin in Kharlab's photo studio, with his
sister Olimpiada in a home theater scene and during his stay in the city of
Pyatigorsk, in which he appeared as a living person, full of movement and energy,
elegant and somewhat theatrical, as if demonstrating his "I" as an
artist".
In the summer of 2020, on the initiative of the widow of the sculptor Liudmyla Ivanivna
Frenchko, the O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum held an "Art event on the birthday of the
sculptor Viktor Frenchko", which gathered artists, journalists, cultural workers and fans of the work
of the master of monumental art. During the event, the works of the artist were exhibited and the
films "A special gift - the plastic thinking of the sculptor Viktor Frenchko" (2018) and "Images of
the luminaries of the Ukrainian theater in the work of the sculptor Viktor Frenchko" (2020) were
shown, prepared by Liudmyla Frenchko, who for many years successfully worked as a teacher and
head of the creative club "Inspiration" of the Kropyvnytskyi Music College and laureate of the
regional award in the field of fine arts and art history named after Oleksandr Osmerkin in the
nomination "art history and art history" (2013).
The exposition of the memorial exhibition "Everything depends on the artist's talent..."
consists of eleven sculptural works by Viktor Frenchko, a member of the National Union of Artists
of Ukraine, from the museum collection "Modern Ukrainian Fine Art" 1999-2018, donated to the
museum funds by the author and his widow Liudmyla Frenchko.
The exhibition is complemented by photos of the sculptor Victor Frenchko in the workshop
and during artistic events, as well as events dedicated to the artist's memory. Photos from the series
"In the sculptor's workshop" by Oleksandr Shuleshko - a member of the National Union of
Journalists of Ukraine, laureate of the Vasyl Kovpak city prize for photo artists (2020) and the
regional journalism prize in the "photojournalism" category (2021) attract special attention. |