Oleksa NOWAKIWSKI, Women working in the fields

oil, cardboard, 40 x 54.5 cm, signed in Cyrillic script l.d.: Oleksa Novakivsky Lvov 1925 and p.d. monogrammed ON.

Ukrainian painter. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under J. Unierzyski, L. Wyczółkowski, J. Fałat and T. Axentowicz, and was friends with J. Malczewski. Married to Anna Palmowska of Mogiła, he lived there from 1900-1913. In 1913 he moved to Lviv at the invitation of Metropolitan Andrzej Szeptycki, who became his patron. From 1923 he ran a painting school in Lviv in his studio. He often went with his students on plein-air painting trips to the Carpathian Mountains. He is the author of landscapes reminiscent of the Krakow school in climate, painted expressively with free brushstrokes and a vivid, saturated color palette. After settling in Lviv, he created compositions alluding to Ukrainian history, legends and folklore.