George Washington arrives in Kaniv's Shevchenko museum

by Walter Karpinich

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - Last year's effort to help obtain a bust of George Washington (see The Ukrainian Weekly May 8, 2005) for the Shevchenko museum in Kaniv has been realized.

Viktor Tarakhan, a long-time staff member and tour-guide of the museum, sent word at end of December about the safe arrival of the statue in Kaniv. The success of this undertaking was made possible trough the generosity of James Rees, the executive director of the George Washington Estates and Gardens in Virginia. After personal contact was made with Mr. Rees, he graciously agreed to gift the bust to the Shevchenko museum.

The bust - approximately two feet in height - is patterned after the marble sculpture of George Washington that was created by the internationally renowned sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon. The work was originally commissioned in 1785 for the State Capitol Building in Richmond, Va., where the statue graces the Rotunda today.

The Washington bust is an exquisite work of art and is now part of the collection of busts of famous world personalities like Mozart, Beethoven, Goethe, Burns and many others that are on permanent display in the main exhibition hall of the Shevchenko museum.

The staff of the Consulate of Ukraine in New York, along with Scope Travel Inc. and Olymp Travel in Kyiv, made arrangements for the shipping of Washington's bust to Kaniv. A heartfelt thank-you to all!

Volodymyr Karpinich, Ph.D., is professor of languages and literatures at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 29, 2006, No. 5, Vol. LXXIV

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