Female image 1975

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this pen and ink drawing called Female Image. Born in Ukraine when it was a Soviet republic, Havrylenko received formal artistic training in the Soviet system. The clean, confident lines in this work suggest the artist’s skill and education, but there’s something not quite orthodox here. It seems to reference the ancient world, perhaps even the classical female nudes studied in the academies. But the expression and line are stark, not idealized. The image seems to challenge the institutions of Soviet art that dictated the content and style of art produced at the time. It seems to have an interiority, a psychological depth that official Socialist Realism generally discouraged. To understand better the place of unofficial art within Soviet society, historians look to archives, personal collections, and other sources. In doing so we can see art as more than an isolated object: it’s a testament to the artist’s place within a particular social and institutional context.