Presumably was born on December 7, the day of St. Catherine the Great Martyr, in whose honor she received her name, into the peasant family in Bogdanovka village (Poltava Province, Pyryatyn district, now a (now Kiev region, Yagotinsky district). As the girl learnt to read and to write by herself, the well-off family of a rural carpenter decided not to send her to the school; this later negatively influenced her destiny: no educational institution accepted her without a school certificate.
1900 - 1961
Kateryna Bilokur
description
A Ukrainian self-taught artist, graphic artist and master of decorative folk painting, People’s Artist of Ukraine (1956), a bright representative of naive art.
The work of the rural artist is among the high achievements of the Ukrainian culture of the 20th century; it is the subject of the study of art historians. There are two exhibitions at the Yagotinsky local history museum: the pictorial and graphic heritage of Bilokur; the large hall of the State Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art is devoted to her works. In 1980, the TV show “Katerina Bilokur” was released; in 1983, composer L. Dichko created the ballet of the same name; in 1986, the documentary movie “The Magic World Bilokur” was filmed; in 1989 – the two-part art film “Disobedient”; in 2009, the play “Two Indigo Flowers” was staged at the Franco Theatre. In 1990, the annual Bilokur Prize was established; it is awarded on the day of St. Catherine.
Key ideas:
– K. Bilokur realized her vocation when she was a teenager. In order to save money, the well-off family decided not to send the talented girl who learned to read and to write herself to school. This circumstance did not allow her to enter a specialized educational institution. The desire to draw was so strong that painting with charcoal was not enough for her; Kateryna secretly made paints from beets, three-lobe beggar ticks and other plants. Overcoming prohibitions, suffering from being beaten by her parents and offended by the villagers, she painted cheerful compositions. She never cut flowers, which she loved to depict. Amazing combinations of spring, summer and autumn plants and fruits in one picture were achieved as a result of working on a picture for several months.
– The artist worked selflessly, but not in a hurry. For example, she painted six dahlia flowers on the canvas “Kolkhoz Field” in three weeks; she felt satisfied when finished painting them. Usually she filled the entire base with elements of the composition, as if trying to use all the corners of the canvas. At the same time, she did not strive for symmetry, even if it was an ornamental plot.
– The master rarely worked with a pencil and watercolor; she was attracted by the richness of oil paint. Even the names — cobalt, cinnabar and ultramarine — seemed wonderful to her. She made brushes herself, selecting cat hairs of the same length; each color had its own brush.
– Apart from flowers, Kateryna painted many still-lifes. The abundance, juiciness of fruits and big breads are especially impressive due to the considerable food problems in Ukraine in those decades. In the two later versions of “Tsar Kolos”, created instead of the original work stolen in Paris, Kateryna, according to her confession, did not manage to draw the spikelets as masterfully as she did it in the hungry 1947.
– As an author of landscapes, Bilokur used watercolor and a more monochrome scale, put a special tenderness in the image of her native Bogdanovka and her hut.
– In the portrait genre, Kateryna is close to realistic graphics and painting. She depicts dignified figures, calm and thoughtful faces. Vividly honest seem to be her self-portraits. An old woman in a quilted jacket and a headscarf, tied “in a peasant manner”, wisely looks from pencil self-portraits with her expressive eyes that express the strength of her character, her thoughts and a considerable amount of sadness.
– The artist’s dream to paint a “fairy tale picture”, in which there would be storks carrying a child, met with a lack of understanding of those around her, who expected amazingly alive flowers from the master. That is why she “locked” her dream in the workshop room, where she did not let anyone in.
1900
1920
1930
1934
1939 - 1941
1944 - 1949
1950
1954
1961
The birth of the artist
She tried to enter the Mirgorod Art and Ceramics College
She tried first to enter the Mirgorod Art and Ceramics College, then – Kyiv Theatre College; however, the absence of school education documents was more important than her talents. From this creative period, the paintings “Woman in a green corset”, “In Bogdanovka, behind the dam”, “Portrait of sister Olga” (1928) survived.
She became the head of the drama club
Gradually, mastering painting by herself, she became the head of the drama club at the rural club and played roles on its stage.
At the cost of stiffened legs, she received permission to paint
In the autumn, brought to despair by the prohibitions of her father and mother, Kateryna pretended that she wanted to drown herself in the Chumgak River; at the cost of stiffened legs, she received permission to paint. Among significant preserved works of that decade, there are “The road goes into the distance”, “Portrait of the collective farmer Tatyana Bakhmach” (1932-1933), as well as two works that made her worldly famous – “Birch” (1934) and “Flowers at the fence” (1935).
The trip to Moscow
People became interested in the works of Kateryna thanks to the help of Oksana Petrusenko, a famous Ukrainian singer, to whom the artist sent a letter and her painting in gratitude for a song. On instructions from Kiev, at the Poltava House of Folk Art, thanks to the efforts of V. Khitko, the head of the artistic and methodological council, and artist M. Dontsov, a small (11 paintings) personal exhibition of the self-taught artist opened. She was encouraged by a prize – a trip to Moscow, where she visited the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum. Paintings of K. Bilokur were exhibited with a furor at the republican exhibition in Kiev; the paintings that were sent back to Poltava at the beginning of the war burned down along with the museum.
The artist was accepted into the Union of Artists of Ukraine
After being liberated from occupation, Vasily Nagay, the director of the State Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art, visited Bogdanovka, purchased a number of paintings and offered organizing exhibitions in many cities; during those years, Catherine created her main works – “Disobedient”, “Decorative flowers”, variants of “Peonies”, the famous picture-symbol “Tsar Kolos”; the artist was accepted into the Union of Artists of Ukraine (1949).
The period of the most fruitful creativity and recognition
The period of the most fruitful creativity and recognition: the artist was awarded the Order of the Sign of Respect, was given the title of Honored Artist (1951) and People’s Artist of Ukraine (1956); her exhibitions were held in the cities of the whole USSR; prominent representatives of Ukrainian culture visited the village, the artist met and corresponded with N. Bazhan and P. Tychyna, V. Kasiyan and A. Sereda, S. Taranushenko and others. However, after the death of her father and because of the illnesses of her old mother, she had to spend much time solving domestic problems.
The Paris International Exhibition
Paintings by Kateryna Bilokur were presented at the Paris International Exhibition; Picasso responded enthusiastically about them, saying a frequently quoted phrase about the genius of the author, “If we had an artist of such a level, we would make a whole world talk about her”. At the same time, the artist struggled with the burden of life: all her titles did not ensure neither firewood for the winter, nor any other help.
The death of the artist
The artist died after an operation on June 10 at the Yagotin hospital; she was buried in her native Bogdanovka with honors. The author of the tombstone was famous sculptor Ivan Gonchar. In the estate-museum, there is a sculpture of the artist – the work of Ivan Bilokur, her nephew, a son of her brother Gregory.