Kremnytska Yelyzaveta

Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.

Liza Kremnytska - an outstanding artist of the third generation of Transcarpathian masters of painting, who at the same time did not resemble anyone, she was a separate artistic personality. She had the courage to be in the epicentre of the new wave of the Transcarpathian artistic life, to become the wife of the artist Pavlo Bedzir, to accept the fate of a painter, rejected by the officialdom, but indestructible in her creativity that continued within her life and ultimately cost her life.

Liza was incredibly talented. She entered the college without any preparation and after a year of studying she impressed by her painting achievements and ability to catch essential features in drawing portraits. She was a difficult person. She opposed to everything mandatory and at the same time was very vulnerable.

Unconventional Liza was born on June 14, 1925 in the oldest part of Uzhhorod - Radvanka. She lived in a small apartment with her mother and a younger brother Otto, who later became a sculptor. From 1932 until 1941 she studied at school. She tried to study at the commercial college, and after that the main thing of her life became evident -  art school, where she studied from 1946 to 1950.

Her first and the only place of work was Art Fund. She exhibited her works at the regional exhibition for the first time in 1952 and since then her exhibition activity did not cease. In the same year, Kremnytska married Pavlo Bedzir. They started their difficult life together, which consisted of creative work and sometimes competition of two talents.

Lisa worked fantastically with colour. Influenced by Pavlo, she experienced a passion for graphics and made a kind of graphics series, but the essence of her work was the colour. Her paintings fascinated with pastose entrusted surprisingly found colour in the tempera techniques, special Bedzir’s emulsion, and even in encaustic - portraits, landscapes, still lifes of the late 1950's - mid-1960s, multi-figured compositions of the 1970s, drawings with felt-tip pens.

In 1958, Kremnytska applied to the National Union of Artists. They took her 10 years later, in 1968, and in 10 years more, in 1978, the artist suddenly died.

All the set of factors that prevented normal professional growth in the USSR weighed upon her. She did not fit into the context of social realism. However, she made her art, which she left us with memories of the bohemian, creative 1960s, and those that were at the epicentre of artistic events.

Mykhailo Syrokhman