Item #237 Hrafika v bunkrakh UPA [Ukrainian underground art: Album]. Nil Khasevych.
Hrafika v bunkrakh UPA [Ukrainian underground art: Album]
Hrafika v bunkrakh UPA [Ukrainian underground art: Album]
Hrafika v bunkrakh UPA [Ukrainian underground art: Album]

Hrafika v bunkrakh UPA [Ukrainian underground art: Album]

Philadelphia: Prolog, 1952. Khasevych, Nil (illustrator). Publisher's cloth with gilt ornament to spine and lettering to front cover. Very good. Item #237

Title: Hrafika v bunkrakh UPA: Albom derevorytiv vykonanych v Ukraini v rokakh 1947-1950 mystsia ukrainskoho pidpillia Nila Chasevycha - "Bei-Zota" ta ioho uchniv. [Ukrainian underground art: Album of the woodcuts made in Ukraine, in 1947-1950 by artist of the Ukrainian underground Nil Khasevych - "Bey-Zot" and his disciples]

Quarto (23.7 x 31.5 cm). 69 pages: illustrations; Text in Ukrainian and English. Bahlay, D., Mehyk, P., Shankowsky, L. (editors); Andrusiw, Peter (cover and publisher’s mark designer). One of 1500 copies; NOT FOR SALE copy. Statement to printer’s imprint and copyright page “First copies of the woodcuts are kept in the archives of the foreign delegation of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (UHVR)” The book comes with the brown paper dust jacket with the inscription in pen "Ne dlia prodazhi" [Not for sale].

The album documents the struggle for artistic freedom against Soviet repression and censorship. The illustrations nicely reproduced on separate plates.

Nil Khasevych was born into a poverty-stricken family in the little Ukrainian village of Volynia in 1906. In 1926, he studied painting and graphic arts at the Academy of Arts in Warsaw. In 1932, he graduated with a teaching diploma but, being Ukrainian, he could not find work so he began specializing in woodcutting and Ukrainian calligraphy. In 1937, four of his woodcuts for bookplates won a prize at the International Exhibition of Woodcuts in Warsaw. During World War Two, Khasevych returned to Ukraine and joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), fighting both the Nazis and the Soviets. He produced numerous woodcuts during and after the war which were highly politicized and critical of the two repressive regimes, and for the production of which he was subject to prosecution and punishment. He died in 1952.

Price: $450.00

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