ROSKIN MYKHAILO

Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (1978).

Mykhailo Roskin was born on 1 July 1923 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region. In 1941, he graduated from the regional art studio (Zaporizhzhia), where his first teacher was a talented painter Ivan Fedianinov. Upon graduation, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia); however, due to the beginning of the war, he could not continue his studies. In 1942, the future artist was called a soldier-communicator on the North Caucasian Front, subsequently serving in Iran, and by the end of the war in Ukraine. Even saw the horrors of war, the artist could not but paint. Mykhailo used calm moments to make sketches, which then helped to create multi-genre compositions.

After 1945, he received artistic and professional training at the Military Painters Studio named after M. Hrekov. It helped the artist to improve his skills of book and newspaper graphics. The memories of the war deeply crashed into the memory of the artist and for a long period of life, they were depicted in his works. The author illustrates publications in periodicals and artistic stories on military subjects.

From the 1950s, he was sent to work as a military artist in Western Ukraine (Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Transcarpathia). It was in Transcarpathia that Mykhailo Roskin was lucky to communicate with the outstanding representatives of the regional school of painting such as F. Manailo, Y. Bokshai, G. Gluck, and A. Kashshai. They helped the artist to form new artistic visions. Mykhailo especially appreciated the plein airs held in the picturesque corners of Transcarpathia with the outstanding master Yosyp Bokshai.

The author was actively engaged in creativity, performed graphic orders for newspapers and magazines, became a member of the Union of Journalists of the USSR (since 1962).  Since 1970, he was working as a teacher of Uzhhorod Art School, teaching aesthetics. Time gradually healed the post-war wounds and awakened a romantic poet who managed to depict the beauty of the world onto a sheet of paper.

The artist's creative heritage consists of numerous graphic compositions, executed in expressive author's manner in various techniques: watercolour, pastel, gouache, charcoal, coloured pencils, ink. In his plot-thematic works, the artist conveyed the everyday life of ordinary people, military, workers. His still lifes, landscapes, figurative compositions are imbued with lyrics and romanticism. Convincing, skilful realistic drawing, expressiveness of silhouette images in conjunction with attention to the least details of the composition – such is the author's style of the artist.

Since 1961, he has been actively involved in art exhibitions in Transcarpathia. His works were exhibited in Hungary and at that time in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The artist was also a member of international plein airs. He held six personal exhibitions in Uzhhorod and Kolomyia (Ivano-Frankivsk region).

His works are kept in private collections in Ukraine, the United States of America, Canada, Israel, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and other countries. More than two dozen works by the artist are kept in the collection of the Transcarpathian Regional Museum of Art named after Y. Bokshai.

Text: Liudmyla Kozlovska
© Art & Culture Foundation Brovdi Art