OBITUARY: Gregor Kruk, renowned sculptor (12/25/88)

OBITUARY

Gregor Kruk, renowned sculptor

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Gregor (Hryhoriy) Kruk, renowned Ukrainian sculptor who was widely recognized in the European art world, died in Munich on December 5. He was 77.

Mr. Kruk, who was born on October 30, 1911, in Bratyshiv, Tovmach county, graduated from the Lviv School of Decorative Art in 1934. He continued his studies at the Krakow Academy of Arts (1937) and the Berlin Academy of Arts (1940), where his teachers included A. Focke and A. Breker.

Settling in Munich after World War II, Mr. Kruk taught at the University of UNRRA in Munich. He also spent six months studying in Italy.

His favorite subject matter in sculpture included figures of peasants, kozaks, working women, bandura players and dancers. He worked in bronze, clay and stone.

Art News and Review from October 30, 1954, featured Mr. Kruk's works, stating: "Sculpture is perhaps the medium most suited to the direct expression of human suffering, and it is a medium deeply understood and sincerely exploited by the Ukrainian sculptor Gregor Kruk. The theme of his most important work is that of the dignity of men and women in the face of hardship and adversity."

His roots and national pride are exhibited in his works as disclosed by painter Jean Cassou's statement in a 1969 monograph published by the Ukrainian Free University in Munich.

He writes: "The Ukrainian sculptor Gregor Kruk has made his way as an artist through all the vicissitudes of our troubled times. It was in various places of exile that he accomplished his work far from his own country and far from the peasant realities which his art evokes. These realities still remain a vivid part of the artist's memory and appear just as vividly and persistently in his sculptures. Their value derives from their sincerity, their powerful frankness and from their moving rusticity. All this evokes an irresistible feeling of sympathy like a folk-song that breathes something of the air and the soil in which it has originated. Such true and simple realities can only be expressed by an art that is equally true and simple, and art based on a sound and genuine knowledge which, besides other gifts, demonstrates most particularly a vivid and sure sense of movement."

Mr. Kruk held one-man shows in Munich, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Bonn, New York, Rome, Vienna, Toronto, Geneva, Philadelphia, and various other cities in Europe and North America.

He also sculpted portraits of various prominent leaders, including Pope Paul VI; in 1964 the pope awarded him a medal of recognition for this work. He also sculpted a bust of Patriarch Josyf Slipyj.

Mr. Kruk's works may be found in the National Museum in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Museum Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia and the East German Museum in Regensburg, as well as in the private collection of Willy Brandt.

A solemn divine liturgy and memorial service were held in Munich on December 9 at the Cathedral of St. Mary the Protectress and at St. Andrew's Church. Funeral services and interment were held on December 13 at Waldfriedhof Cemetery.

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