Antique Polish Ukrainian Painting Pstrak Yaroslav
$40,000.00
Authentic Antique circa 1900 oil painting on canvas by one of the most important Ukrainian Painter, Jaroslaw Pstrak.The subject of this beautifully executed painting is a typical aspect of the Western Ukrainian countryside live, Ploughing a ploughman working in the field wearing white clothes leaning heavily with both hands on his plough in a field which is drawn by two horses. This work of art, in the characteristic Munich school manner, is executed with grate scale of art coloristic tones and wonderful detail, great atmosphere and color, and is a fine portrayal in a very naturalistic way of a farmer and horses with a village appearing in the far distance on the horizon line; Signed in the Latin alphabet on the lower right side "J. Pstrak".
This painting resembles the art of another famous Painter, Josef Chelmonski, who also studied and lived in Munich at the same time.
Jaroslav Pstrak (1878-1916), the talented Ukrainian artist born in Gvozdets Gwozdziec Hvizdets, Western Ukraine. He studied in the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, and later on he continued his study in Munich, Germany which was at this time a Center of European Art and Mecca of painters. In 1899 after graduation from The Academy of Fine Arts Munich, he moved to the city Lwow where he came to be a well known artist and his paintings were highly prized and popular among the local Galicien Aristocracy and Upper-classes. In Lwow he met Ivan Trusz and they both became close friends, in the meantime he also traveled all over Europe. To support himself financially he also painted Post Cards for publishers from Lwow and Krakow, all of the postcards are copies based on his paintings, many are published in the three-volume Ukrainian Book "Ukrainian Art In Old Postcards" by Valeriy Kovtun and Serhiy Polehenkiy. (Vik Publishing House Kolomyia 2003). In 1909 he had returned to his native land were he had accomplished some paintings for the local Hutsul churches in the villages Werchowyna and Ilica, he also illustrated "Kobzar", the poetical works of Taras Shevchenko.
Pstrak paintings very rarely appear on the international art market in view of the fact that he died young.
MEASUREMENTS: Dimensions with the frame: 118 cm x 92.7 cm (46 1/2 inches x 36 1/2 inches). Dimensions without the frame: 99.7 cm x 734 cm (39 1/4inches x 29 1/8 inches).
CONDITION: The painting has no restorations whatsoever, the painting was however put on a new stretching frame many years ago, and since the canvas is very old, for reinforcement and protection, it was placed on another layer of support canvas, the frame is a later replacement. The photographs do not do justice to the quality of the painting.
References: "Encyclopaedia of Ukraine", edited by Danylo Husar Struk, University of Toronto Press, 1984..
In 1966 in Ukraine was published an album with his artwork.
In 2005 the Regional Museum in Krasnystaw in Poland presented an exhibition, "Polish Paintings from the Second Half of the 19th century and the Beginning of the 20th century" which included the paintings of Jaroslaw Pstrak, Maksymiliana Gierymski, Henryk Waysenhoff, Alfreda Wierusz-Kowalski, Józefa Brand, Apoloniusz Kedzierski. Symboliczny, Jacka Malczewski, Wojciech Weiss, Bruno Lechowski. Olga Boznanska, Konrada Krzyzanowski, Wladyslaw Slewinskie, Józefa Chelmonski, Wojciecha Kossaka and other artists.
