The Trees (The Left Part of the "Summer" Triptych)

Hryhorii Havrylenko was a Ukrainian painter, graphic artist, and renowned master of book illustration. He was a prominent figure in the Ukrainian avant-garde art movement of the 1960s.

The artwork of Hryhorii Havrylenko has been featured in numerous exhibitions, showcasing books, drawings, watercolors, and paintings since 1955. In his later years, he specialized in the technique of colored linocut.

The artist was born in 1927. After the family's property was confiscated in 1930, they fled to Georgia. Later, his father was sent to a labor camp. Following these events, Hryhorii's mother returned with the children to their native village, where they were given shelter. Eventually, the family resettled in Hlukhiv, Sumy region.

From 1945 to 1949, Havrylenko studied at the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State Art School, and from 1949 to 1955, he studied first in the painting department and later in the graphics department of the Kyiv Art Institute.

In the early 1960s, he briefly taught at the Kyiv Art Institute, but soon was dismissed for ideological reasons. Havrylenko's art was truly versatile. He worked in easel painting, easel, and book graphics, creating landscapes and portraits. 

He participated in republican, all-Union, and international art exhibitions from 1955 onward, including exhibiting in Leipzig in 1965. Solo exhibitions were held in Kyiv in 1974 and 1980.

The artist's death occurred in 1984.

The artist worked in various art fields, including easel painting and book graphics. Additionally, he illustrated over 30 books. Hryhorii Havrylenko's original paintings include a lot of works, such as "The Image of the Girl (1964), "Summer" Triptych (1965), "Sea Shore" (1967), "Landscape" (1969-1970), "Composition" (1974), and many more. 

The artist's works are preserved in the Sumy and Lebedyn Art Museums, the Sixtiers Museum, and private collections. Havrylenko's paintings for sale are available on the UFDA website.

In the 1960s, Hryhorii's painting oeuvre expanded to include several abstract works, or as he referred to them, "non-objective" pieces, primarily using tempera and oil on cardboard. During this period, he was also highly active in book illustration, creating graphics for Panas Myrnyi's novel Chipka, which faced harsh criticism.

In 1965, a collection of Dante's works, Vita Nova, featuring Havrylenko's illustrations, was published. For this project, the artist created numerous pen-and-ink drawings, striving to capture the idealized images of Dante and Beatrice. Notably, he may have been the first to employ a new drawing technique known as the grid.

In the 1980s, the artist ceased creating major works during his later years. However, in 1981–1982, he produced a significant series of abstract watercolors and a pastel series, where his impressions of specific landscapes were transformed into universal abstract imagery.