Vadym Odainyk

Vadym Odainyk was a distinguished Ukrainian painter who celebrated the beauty of Ukrainian nature, creating Carpathian landscapes, vivid genre scenes from the lives of the Hutsuls, as well as expressive portraits and still lifes.

Throughout his life the artist received numerous titles and awards reflecting his contribution to the development of art. Vadym Odainyk’s paintings are held in more than 100 museums, as well as in regional galleries and private collections.

The artist was born in 1925 in Odesa. At the age of five he moved with his parents to Kyiv. During the Nazi-Soviet War, at the age of 17, he went to the front and served as a tank mechanic in the 4th Tank Army.

In 1946 he graduated from the Kyiv Art Institute. During his studies he absorbed knowledge and experience from such masters as Illia Shtilman, Serhiy Hryhoriev, Volodymyr Kostetsky, and others.

From 1953, the artwork of Vadym Odainyk was featured in art exhibitions.

In 1958, he became a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. In 1971, Vadym Odainyk was awarded the title of Honored Artist of Ukraine.

In 1975, for his genre paintings Troisti Muzyky, The Red Forge, Spring, and Hutsul Wedding, he was awarded the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR.

In 1978, for his work Troisti Muzyky, he was awarded the title of People's Artist of Ukraine.

Vadym Odainyk passed away in 1984 in Kyiv.

In his works, the artist made bold use of color and textured brushwork. His pieces are marked by a particular emotional intensity.

Each spring and autumn spent among the Transcarpathian landscape gave the artist material that was later transformed, in his Kyiv studio, into landscapes: In the Meadow, Haymaking, Festival in the Mountains, Road to Kosiv, Black Tysa, and a great number of variations under the general title The Carpathians.

Many of Vadym Odainyk's original paintings are dedicated to the labor of Soviet workers. His fascination with large-scale construction is evident in works from the 1960s: The Brigade, The Assemblers, The Builders. The artist monumentalizes his figures, lending them a heroic character.

UFDA digitized Morning over the Dnipro (1980) by the artist from the collection of the Regional Communal Museum of Local History in Borshchiv. This painting is now available for viewing on the fund's website.

Vadym Odainyk's style is a unique phenomenon in Ukrainian painting of the second half of the 20th century. He is often described as a master of "poetic realism" and Neo-Impressionism.

A certain inner affinity with Impressionism can already be detected in his landscapes and still lifes of the 1960s, yet his true flowering came in the genre paintings of the following decade: in Carpathian Musicians, Village Fair, and The Wedding.

Bold and emphatically "open" colors become the principal dominant of the artist's works. Color in his paintings is the primary carrier of emotion. The artist had a passion for bright, saturated, almost pure hues.

His brushwork is broad, confident, temperamental, and thick (impasto). It is this vivid texture that gives his paintings their extraordinary inner dynamism.