Turning the pages back... March 22, 1894 (03/15/98)

Turning the pages back...

March 22, 1894

Vasyl Yermilov, one of the few members of the Soviet Ukrainian avant-garde of the 1920s to survive into old age, was born in Kharkiv on March 22, 1894. He studied at the Kharkiv Art School and then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

In the early days of Soviet rule he designed posters, "agit-trains," street decorations, billboards, the interiors of public buildings (such as the murals in the Kharkiv Circus foyer), theatrical sets, displays, and journal and book covers. He received several international prizes for his graphic designs, including a gold medal at the Leipzig International Graphics Exhibition and an award at the 1928 Köln International Press Exhibition.

He taught at the Kharkiv Art Tekhnikum (1921-1922) and the Kharkiv Art Institute (1922-1935). In 1926 he joined the Avanhard group of artists and in 1927 the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine - the organizations that butted heads with those who touted the Stalinist socialist-realist line.

He worked as a graphic designer for the newspaper Doba Konstruktsiyi, the journal Mystetski Materialy Avanhardu and, together with the writer and literary critic Valerian Polischuk, three issues of the Biuleten Avanhardu.

Yermilov synthesized formalist esthetics and folk designs in his constructivist collages and typographic designs, joining the program of "constructive dynamism" or "spiralism," which developed distinctly and in parallel with Russian constructivism.

As the screws tightened on those with formalist styles in the late 1930s, Yermilov was forced out of the Soviet art scene. He survived, however, and in the latter years of his life, beginning in 1963, he returned to the Kharkiv Art Institute to teach.

Yermilov died in Kharkiv on December 4, 1967.

Source: "Yermilov, Vasyl," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 5 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).