Alexey Novakivsky, THE SOBRIETY OF HOLY YURA IN Lviv

22.1 x 32.0cm - oil, cardboard On the reverse l.g. number referring to the size of the subpainting (in pencil): 22 [.] 32; centrally stamped with number: 415; repeated on sticker above: next to it stamp (in Cyrillic): SPADKOWA MASA | b.p. Olieksy Novakivskogo; below in ink (Cyrillic): za kuratoriu; below, 3 illegible signatures; l.d. slice with no. (in pencil): 13/2.

Novakivsky painted the sobor many times, and was called the St. George Magician. The artist, who moved to Lviv in 1913, settled at the foot of the church rising on a hill, at 11 Mickiewicza St. Today his museum is located there. The cathedral naturally became a recurring impressionist motif for the painter, like the Dnieper River for Stanislavsky or Kosciuszko Mound for Wyspianski. The building from which Novakivsky painted views of the Orthodox church was bought by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (whose residence was the palace next to St. George's Cathedral) from Jan Styka in 1907.

In 1908 it was donated to the Orthodox Museum in Lviv. In 1923 Novakivsky, with the encouragement and financial support of Szeptycki, opened an art school in the house, which operated until 1933. The cathedral had symbolic significance as the center of Ukrainianness and the seat of Metropolitan Sheptytsky. Novakivsky called the paintings that depict the St. Yura Cathedral "transfigurations."

Alexey Novakivsky (Oleksa Novakivskyi) is a 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.