Haymaking

Serhii Hryhoriev was a Ukrainian artist, painter, graphic artist, and educator — one of the most prominent representatives of Socialist Realism in Ukrainian art of the mid-20th century.

He gained all-Union recognition through his genre paintings depicting the lives of Soviet youth and children. Serhii Hryhoriev's paintings were exhibited from 1933 onward.

The artist was born in 1910 in Luhansk. He was the eleventh child in the family. His family was of humble background — his father worked as a railway watchman.

From 1922 to 1926, Serhii studied at the Zaporizhzhia School of Arts and Crafts. After that, he spent a year attending the Higher Art and Technical Studios (VKhUTEMAS) in Moscow.

Later, from 1928 to 1932, he pursued his art education at the Kyiv Art Institute, where he gained knowledge and experience under such teachers as Mykhailo Kupriianov, Lev Bruni, Volodymyr Favorskyi, Fotii Krasytskyi, Kostiantyn Yeleva, Volodymyr Denysov, Yevhen Sahaidachnyi, and Fedir Krychevskyi.

After graduating from the institute, he worked at the poster studio of the Kharkiv publishing house Literatura i Mystetstvo (Literature and Art). From 1932 to 1933, he taught in the Drawing Department of the Kharkiv Art Institute; from 1934 onward, he served as an associate professor in the Drawing Department of the Kyiv Art Institute.

From March 1940 to April 1946, he served in the Red Army. He served in the quartermaster corps and held the military rank of lieutenant.

From 1947, he served as a professor, and from 1950 as the head of the Genre Painting Studio at the Kyiv Art Institute. From 1951 to 1955, he held the position of rector of the institution. In 1958, he took charge of the Creative Studios of the Academy of Arts of the Ukrainian SSR, which he led until the end of his life.

The artwork of Serhii Hryhoriev was featured in all-Ukrainian exhibitions from 1935, all-Union exhibitions from 1937, and international exhibitions from 1933. Solo exhibitions were held in Kyiv in 1940 and 1973.

The artist passed away in Kyiv in 1988.

He worked in the fields of easel painting (creating portraits, landscapes, and genre compositions), easel graphics, and poster art.

Among Serhii Hryhoriev's original paintings: Bathers (1933), Children on the Beach (1937), A Komsomol Family (1939), Portrait of Maxim Gorky (1939), Evening Rays (1946), A Boy with Character (1956), Children (1970), Koncha-Zaspa (1976), and others.

He also painted portraits of Soviet Union Marshal Ivan Konev (1947), and artists Serhii Otroshchenko (1957), Tetiana Holembiivska (1960), as well as numerous writers.

UFDA digitized Haymaking (1986) 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.

Initially the artist came under the influence of Impressionism; later, in his genre paintings, he emerged as a representative of realism, though he was not immune to the pressure of Socialist Realist dogma.

Although he formally worked within the rigid framework of Socialist Realism, the artist managed to humanize this ideologically charged style by shifting the focus away from the grand-scale "pathos of communist construction" toward genuine human emotion and everyday life. His works are distinguished by psychological depth, close attention to details of dress and domestic life, and a gentle narrative quality.

In the later period of his career, the artist moved away from the strict Soviet canons of the genre scene and turned his attention more toward intimate portraits, landscapes, and refined graphic work.