FACES AND PLACES: Coal and prairie: painting the past (08/23/98)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Coal and prairie: painting the past

North America's Ukrainian community has produced three outstanding native-born artists whose major works were devoted to pioneer life.

The first was Nicholas Bervinchak, born in Schuylkill County, Pa., the son of a coal miner. Influenced greatly by the colorful church environment in which he grew up, Nicholas demonstrated an early artistic talent. As a young man living in Minersville, he met Paul Daubner, a European-trained muralist and frescoist who was in town to decorate one of the churches. Nicholas soon became Mr. Daubner's assistant, and the two of them worked on a number of Byzantine churches in the area, painting frescoes, murals and icons.

Noticing the strikingly distinctive work that Nicholas produced with pen and ink, Mr. Daubner introduced his young assistant to the art of etching, which the young man eventually adopted as his major, and most successful, medium. Inspired by the pioneer coal miners who established America's early Ukrainian communities, Mr. Bervinchak devoted his life to portrayals of the "men down under."

Most of his art was produced during the 1930s and included, in addition to coal mining and farm scenes, a portrait of Anna Sten, a well-known Ukrainian Hollywood actress of the era. His works were later displayed at the Smithsonian Institute, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, at the World Fairs in Chicago (1932) and New York (1939), and at museums in Stockholm and Milan.

Canada has produced two extraordinary Ukrainian artists of the prairie. The first is the renowned William Kurelek, born in 1927 to Ukrainian Canadian pioneers near Whitford, Alberta. In the words of his biographer, Patricia Morley, "Bill grew up strongly influenced by the landscape, the farm routines and the rural culture which fed the artist's imagination." The family moved to Stonewall, just north of Winnipeg, when Bill was 7. "The flat black farmland of Manitoba and the life of its immigrant settlers became the subject of many of his paintings and one of the deepest emotional attachments of his life," writes his biographer.

Much of Kurelek's work has been reproduced in a series of superb collections, including "A Northern Nativity: Christmas Dreams of a Prairie Boy" and "They Sought a New World: The Story of European Immigration to North America." My personal favorite is a collection of some 160 paintings, "The Passion of Christ According to St. Matthew." The originals can be viewed at the Niagara Falls Art Gallery and Museum in Ontario.

Another prairie native is Peter Shostak. Born in 1943 on a farm in northeastern Alberta, he received an M.Ed. in art education at the University of Alberta; later he became an associate professor of education at the University of Victoria. In 1979 he left teaching to pursue a full-time career as an artist. His most ambitious project, completed in 1991, was a series of 50 oil paintings devoted to early Ukrainian pioneer life in western Canada. Five years in production, the collection was later published in "For Our Children," a splendid coffee-table book portraying the many trials and triumphs of Canada's Ukrainian pioneers. The latest book featuring his paintings is "Prairie Born," released in 1997.

Active in the Ukrainian Canadian Community - he was president of the Ukrainian Canadian Cultural Society of Vancouver for 10 years - Mr. Shostak resides in Victoria, British Columbia, with his wife Geraldine and son Andriy.

In his preface to "For Our Children," Mr. Shostak wrote: "As I read first-hand accounts of settlers' experiences, certain topics or themes began to surface. Although each of the 50 paintings is centered around one of the themes, the series does not tell the complete story of life in this new land. However, I would like to think that many of the main topics have been dealt with."

"It is hoped that this publication will serve as an introduction to the history of Ukrainian settlement in Canada and that interested individuals will seek out some of the source publications and documents listed in the bibliography. It is also hoped that more of this material, which is not readily available to the average reader, will appear in publications which are widely distributed."

Although they are generations apart, there is one element that binds all three Ukrainian artists: pride. Pride in their American and Canadian heritage. Pride in their Ukrainian roots. Pride in the sacrifices their parents and grandparents made in establishing their family and community life in the new world.

There is pride and there is also love. Has anyone ever made a more loving statement regarding one's Ukrainian heritage than Mr. Shostak in his "Is That Your Baba's Coat?"

I believe Messrs. Kurelek and Shostak are one of the reasons Ukrainians in Alberta are alive and well. Isn't it about time that we in the United States took Mr. Shostak's example to heart and began paying more attention to those on whose shoulders we stand? If we learned more about our past, perhaps we could learn something that would sustain us in dealing with the present.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]

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