Ganna Sobachko-Shostak / Hanna Sobachko-Shostak
2008. Sewn cl. Beginning her career in the last years of the tsarist regime, the artist worked in a carpet-making studio in Skoptsi from 1910. The owner A. Semygradova and the designer E. Prybyl’s’ka recognized her talent, and the Polatava embroidery tradition shaped her sense of design: she was then doing watercolors and gouaches as patterns for the studio’s embroidery. It was a time of ferment as folk art became a source of inspiration for modern art, and modern art in turn influenced popular art. Sobachko-Shostak drawings and designs were shown at exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Kiev, Berlin, and Paris in 1913, 1914, and 1915. Her works were exhibited in the early Soviet period at Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Prague, London, and Paris. In the 1920s and early 1930s she attracted attention with her large works that in their swirling forms seemed geometric, but usually depicted flowers and gardens, fish and birds, real and imaginary. The constraints placed on artists from the mid thirties to the early sixties led her to forsake original works. She resumed her career only in the early sixties with a spurt of creativity before her death in 1965. The book’s large format and many two-page spreads impart the force and beauty of the paintings; the publisher has designed the book thoughtfully with archival photos interspersed to show the artist at work; beautiful end papers are in the spirit of Ukrainian folk art. 168 pp., 9 ½ x 12 ½ ins.,16 b-&-w, 144 color, sewn cl., Ukrainian with summary in ENGLISH. Item #4254
Price: $78.00