Boretskyi Adalbert

Adalbert Boretskyi is a well-known Ukrainian and Slovak painter, one of the students of Adalbert Erdeli. Along with the usual for artists of his generation landscape themes and still lifes, the artist is passionate about scenes of people working in the Carpathians. "Nature is the main teacher of the artist," - Boretskyi said. For years he varied the plot of logging and timber removing, achieving an impressive dynamism of composition, given by the arrangement of trees and cut trunks, tense poses of lumbermen and horses pulling loaded carts. In his landscapes, he is interested in special conditions of nature, the theme of winter. His romanticism is evident in dance scenes, meeting of lovers, graphic works with figures in complex foreshortenings. All this fits well into the artist's outlook. "Painting is the mirror of all the beautiful things that the universe offers us."

Adalbert Boretskyi was born on November 14, 1910 in the village of Ublia (now Slovakia) in the family of a teacher. In 1925, his family moved to Uzhhorod. Adalbert studied in the gymnasium, and since 1927 - in the teachers' seminary. That year he met Kotska, Kontratovych, Sholtes and began to work at the public school of drawing, founded by Erdeli and Bokshai. After graduating from the seminary, Boretskyi worked as a teacher in the village of Velyka Kopania from 1931 to 1934. He drew a lot and in 1933 together with Kotska he arranged the first exhibition. In 1936, he intended to enter the university, but a professor at the Prague Academy discouraged the young artist, warning that the school can negate his original talent. Erdeli also called Boretskyi one of the most talented artists of the region. From 1938 to 1945 he again worked as a teacher in villages, studied the way of life and work of the peasants, drew a lot.

Boretskyi returned to Uzhhorod. He actively worked, taught at art school, participated in all exhibitions. In 1947, he created his large famous painting "Timber removing". The artist painfully suffered a persecution of his teacher Erdeli and his death in 1955. He understood that he did not fit the requirements of solitary correct method of social realism, which was imposed by  unintelligent people, he could not be adjusted to their orders. In 1964, he left Transcarpathia and went to Slovakia. He confessed that there he drew differently than in Uzhhorod.

Adalbert Boretskyi died on June 12, 1990.