Alexey Novakivsky, Pond in the botanical park in Lviv

90.5 x 94.0cm - oil, canvas doubled signed p.d. (in Cyrillic): O. Novakivskij

On the stretcher (stamp): 86.



Provenance:

The offered painting was acquired directly from the artist in the early 1920s by François Groër (1887 -1965), a world-renowned pediatrician, professor at Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, later director of the Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw. Groër was a prominent collector and connoisseur of works of art. He had a significant collection of handicrafts and Polish paintings, as well as more than a dozen paintings by Novakivsky, whose work he was an admirer. The current owner of the painting acquired it in the 1990s from Maria Groër (1920-2009), the professor's daughter.

Alexei Novakivsky (Oleksa Novakivskyi) - Ukrainian painter; he began his study of painting in Odessa, where he studied under F.F. Klimenko from 1888 to 1892. Then, thanks to the patronage of the Brzozowski family of Popieluch (an estate in Braclaw province), he took up studies at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow. Here he studied under J. Unierzyski, L. Wyczółkowski, J. Fałat and T. Axentowicz. He was also associated with the landscape painting studio of Jan Stanislawski (in 1907 he took part in an exhibition of his students). He completed his studies in 1904. In 1900-1913 he lived in Mogiła near Krakow from where he went on plein-air painting trips to Poznan and the Carpathian Mountains. In 1913 he moved to Lvov, invited by Father Metropolitan Andrzej Szeptycki, who from then on was his patron. He settled in the former home of Jan Styka (now the O.Novakivsky Museum). In 1923 he opened a painting school in his studio; every year he went with his students on plein-air painting trips to the Carpathian Mountains, and in 1932 he was with them in Italy. He exhibited a lot - both jointly with various associations of Ukrainian and Polish artists, including in 1911 with the group "Zero," in 1912 with the Society of Polish Artists "Art," many times at TPSP in Krakow and TZSP in Warsaw, where a solo exhibition of his works was held in 1932. In the "Cracow" period, he mainly created landscapes with vivid colors and expressive painting textures. After 1913, already in Lviv, he also painted portraits, genre scenes of Hutsul life, images of heroes of Ukrainian legends, still lifes, flowers, allegorical and religious compositions.