Tetiana Yablonska

Biography

In 1949 Tetiana Yablonska finished “Bread”, a canvas almost four metres long: heaps of golden grain, smiling collective farmers, sunlight over the whole scene. The picture brought her the Stalin Prize, second class, and in 1958 a bronze medal at the World’s Fair in Brussels.

Two years earlier things had gone differently. Her painting “Before the Start” (1947) did not receive the prize: that was just when the campaign against formalism had been declared.

Yablonska was born on 11 (24) February 1917 in Smolensk. Her father, Nil Alexandrovich Yablonsky, was an artist and taught literature; her sister Yelena also became an artist, her brother Dmytro an architect. The family moved often: in 1928 to Odesa, in 1930 to Kamianets-Podilskyi, where Tetiana finished seven-year school, in 1934 to Luhansk. In 1933 she entered the Kyiv Art Technical School, and when it closed in 1935 she transferred to the painting faculty of the Kyiv Art Institute, where she studied until 1941 in the studio of Fedir Krychevsky. The war interrupted her work; she returned to Kyiv soon after its liberation and in 1944 joined the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR. From 1947 to 1973 she taught at the institute, becoming a professor in 1967; Mikhail Turovsky is named among her students. In 1951–1959 she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, and in 1960 she received the title of People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR.

The second Stalin Prize was for “Spring” (1951). In 1954 came “Morning”, which shows her daughter Yelena; the painting is in the Tretyakov Gallery. In 1956 her work was shown at the Venice Biennale. Then came “Festive Evening” (1960), “With Father” (1962), “Wedding” (1963), and “Youth” and “Nameless Heights” (1969). Later her manner became more restrained and laconic.

In 1968, at the congress of the artists of Ukraine, Yablonska spoke out sharply against the Party’s “tutelage” of art. Afterwards her painting “Life Goes On” was removed from an exhibition, she herself had a hard conversation with Andriy Skaba, the secretary for propaganda of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and she lost all her posts. A few months later Skaba himself was removed from office, and she was reinstated. Almost the entire print run of an album in the folk manner with poems by Ivan Drach was, by some accounts, destroyed as “nationalist”. I think this story is worth keeping in mind next to the list of her awards: the list is long, but her life was not a smooth one.

In 1973 she became a full member of the USSR Academy of Arts, and in 1974 she received the Academy’s silver medal for the painting “Evening. Old Florence” (1973). For “Flax” (1977) she was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1979; in 1982 she became People’s Artist of the USSR, and in 1987 she received the Academy’s gold medal for a series of portraits.

The 1990s proved fruitful for her. Exhibitions followed one after another: “From the Depths of the Soul” at the National Art Museum of Ukraine (1993), “Windows” (1996), a show at a London gallery on Cork Street (1996), a retrospective for her eightieth birthday (1997), the temperas “Memories” (1999). In 1998 she received the Shevchenko National Prize for her recent work, and in 2001 the title of Hero of Ukraine. After a serious illness in 1999 she worked sitting in a chair, mostly in pastel and tempera; in 2002 the exhibition “The Seasons” was held.

She worked to the very end: it is said that she made her last pastel study on the day of her death, 17 June 2005, in Kyiv. She was buried in the Baikove Cemetery.