Sevastyanov Victor Grigorievich

Soviet Ukrainian painter. He was born on July 1, 1923 in Odessa. Member of the Great Patriotic War. From 1945 to 1947 he studied at the Odessa Art Institute (lecturer M.D. Todorov). From 1945 to 1947 – player of the football team “Pishchevik” (Odessa). From 1947 to 1952 he was a player of Dynamo Kyiv. From 1952 to 1953, he was the captain of the KVO team. In 1953 he leaves football and devotes himself entirely to painting. Two years after the end of his football career, he joined the Kiev Association of Artists. Since 1958, Sevastyanov – an artist of the production and art studios of the Khudfond of the USSR. April 1, 1961 he was given a candidate, and two years later – a membership card of the Union of Artists of the USSR. His friends and teachers are well-known Ukrainian artists: F. Zakharov, V. Puzyrkov, P. Sleta, A. Plamenitsky, L. Chichkan, M. Khmelko, N. Khan. Today, about P. Grigorievich and his work, P. Stolyarenko remembered very warmly. The main exhibitions: – All-Union Exhibition “40 Years of the Komsomol”, Moscow, 1958 – “The Art of Ukraine”, Moscow, 1960 – Republican Exhibitions, 1970-1975, 1977-1985, 1987, 1989 – All-Union Exhibition, Moscow, 1972 – “The Art of Ukraine “, Minsk, 1978 – Shevchenko’s exhibition, Moscow, 1981, 1984. Sevastyanov – a painter by his nature is apolitical, for him the world of art is a world of nature. Aesthetic emotions he manifests, drawing melting snow behind the shed at the edge of the forest; a lonely tree above the river and white, descending low to the horizon of the cloud. Here they are, the “heroes” of his canvases: an old rural fence, a horse harnessed to a sleigh, a lilac, a forest … A game of colors, shades, the flow of objects to others … Each landscape of Viktor Sevastyanov is a certain state of mind: the lyric tonality of blue- gray-green with their understatement, tranquility, and sometimes boredom, loneliness; expressiveness and optimism of bright red, green, yellow with their rudeness and deliberateness. During his career as an artist, Sevastyanov demonstrated a clear commitment to the Odessa school with its warm colors and nuances of the color range, an unchanging interest in nature and the plein air as a stylistic principle. He participated in many republican and all-Union exhibitions, among which the most important, probably, was the first collective exhibition in Moscow in 1958, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Komsomol. Naturally, the epoch left its stamp on the landscape painter Sevastyanov. For example, in the best traditions of socialist realism he wrote canvases from the cycle “Azovstal”. But this is just an incidental episode, a forced nod towards Soviet demands for “proletarian art,” in order to continue creating landscapes and communicate with the outstanding and simply talented Ukrainian artists Shatalin, Sleta, Chichkan, Plamenitsky, Zakharov, and participate in the open air. … Already after the death of Viktor Sevastyanov (1993), his family held several exhibitions of his paintings. Posthumous exhibitions organized by the artist’s family: 1996 – Nantes, France, 1997 – Rennes, France, 2003 – Brussels, Belgium, 2004 – Brussels. The Belgians called our artist a post-impressionist, which, in general, is not far from the truth. One of the leading Belgian newspapers “Leco” wrote about the work of the Ukrainian: “In his snowy landscapes there are calm and clear, speaking about the severity of the season, during which life slows down, at home sleep, sleigh do everyday work. spring will come, wake up the meadows, in the shining of colors the apple trees will come to life. “The canvases convey an excited atmosphere, changing with the rhythm of the seasons.” The works of Viktor G. Sevastyanov are kept in the Gorlovka Picture Gallery, the Donetsk Art Museum, the Khmelnitsky Art Museum and a number of other museums in Ukraine. They are in private collections in England, France, Canada, Germany and Belgium. Visitors of many art galleries of the world can admire them.

Photo: Sevastyanov Viktor Grigorevich “Industrial Bridge” 1988

Photo: Viktor Sevastyanov “Spring”.