MASNIUK IVAN

He was born on 7 July 1945 in the Serednie village, Uzhhorod district. In 1963 he graduated from the Uzhhorod College of Applied Arts (department "artistic processing of wood"). After serving in the army, he entered the Lviv Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts, successfully graduated in 1973 and returned to Uzhhorod. From 1973 to 2016 he worked as a teacher in the Uzhhorod College of Applied Arts (now Uzhhorod College of Arts named after A. Erdeli). In 1987, a solo exhibition of the artist was held in the Uzhhorod alpinarium.

Ivan Masniuk belongs to a small cohort of sculptor-creators. He is endowed with an incomprehensible talent to spiritualize his work, influence our feelings, thoughts, change this imperfect world for the better. Man, his spiritual universe is in the centre of the master's work. He is distinguished by a positive life-affirming humorous-ironic perception of the world, boundless optimism, freedom-lovingness and faith in himself. By nature, the sculptor is endowed with an unbridled temperament, subtle artistic taste, unlimited imagination, which finds its material embodiment in his expressionistic works. His mastery was polished under the influence of Dmytro Krvavych, Valentyn Borysenko, Emmanuil Mysko – famous artists of Ukraine. The art critic Mykhailo Syrokhman in his article about the artist's work writes: "Ivan Masniuk came with his own unique style, with a deep own world of ideas and feelings, found and suffered by the soul and mind. With his world that is alive and rebellious, rebellious not in the form of riot but boldness and a thirst to live full-blooded life, to speak at the top of its voice. Among the Uzhhorod sculptures there were no works of such an expressive form and so profound philosophically." Already in the first portraits of Masniuk, the defining features of his creative manner are traced: a solid constructive composition, an accentuated facial solution, emotional expressiveness and psychological accuracy of the image, which, while remaining an individual portrait, acquires a generalized and symbolic sound.

In the artistic heritage of the master there are hundreds of works. Among them are portraits and memorial plaques “The Poet Fedir Bezrodnyi” (1970), “Thought” (1987), “Portrait Of The Artist Ferents Seman” (1987), “The Bust Of Taras Shevchenko” (1987), “The Taras Shevchenko Memorial Board” (1987), “The Man With His Head Held High. (Portrait of the Artist Pavlo Bedzir)” (1986), “Portrait Of The Writer Hrendzha-Donskyi” (1991), “Portrait Of Fritz Glents” (1997), etc. He is also the author of a series of lyrical feminine sculptures, thematic works “Maternity” (1974), “Moment Of The Victory” (1974), “Spring” (1980), “Joyful Dream” (1980), “To The Sun” (1981), “Recollection (Reciprocity)”, “To Yourself “ (1983) and others.

Ivan Masniuk is also a talented teacher who brought up hundreds of artists who remember him with gratitude and consider him their mentor.

A participant in all-Ukrainian and foreign art exhibitions, symposia of sculpture and international plein air, in particular in Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland.

Volodymyr Myshanych