Turning the pages back...

June 24, 1880

Prague has long been a focal point for the international art scene, and since the turn of the century a key fixture in the Czech capital was Ivan Kulets.

Born on June 24, 1880, in Kholoiv (now Vuzlove) near Zolochiv in Galicia, he graduated from the Krakow Painting Academy in 1909, then moved to Bohemia in 1914.

In 1924, Kulets began to teach at the Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts in Prague, which became his private art school after government subsidies were eliminated. In 1939, he renamed it the Ukrainian Painting Academy and in 1946 it was nationalized.

At first Kulets's paintings were influenced by the Secessionist (Art Nouveau) movement, but by the beginning of the 1920s his style reflected experimentations in technique and media. Twenty of his paintings hang in Prague's National Gallery, and 164 are at the Museum of Ukrainian Culture in Svydnyk, Slovakia.

Kulets died in Prague on March 11, 1952. A posthumous exhibition of his work was held in Svydnyk in 1960.

Source: "Kulets, Ivan," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 23, 1996, No. 25, Vol. LXIV

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