POPOVYCH MYKHAILO

Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. He is a laureate of the Regional Prize named after Y. Bokshai and A. Erdeli (2001).

He was born in Bilenkyi village, Velykooleksandrivskyi district of the Kherson region, and soon the family moved to Kharkiv. At a young age, he volunteered for a construction battalion to restore the war-torn area. In 1946-1949 he studied at the Kharkiv College of Applied Arts, and in 1955 he graduated from the Faculty of Wood Art Processing of the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts, where his teachers were I. Severa and A. Overchuk. He was sent to work in the Uzhhorod College of Applied Arts, where he raised his professional level, took knowledge from I. Harapko and V. Svyda.

The master embodied his works in various materials – he worked with wood, marble, clay, glass. Mykhailo Popovych is the author of the sculptures “After the Battle” (1973), “The Brothers” (1975), “The Scout” (1976), “The Old Loggers” (1979) that replenished the collection of the Transcarpathian Regional Art Museum named after Y. Bokshai, three-dimensional wooden sculptures "Fighters", "Bokorash", "Seeing Partisans off", "Carpathian Insurgents".

He worked in co-authorship with Kostiantyn Lozov, they have been friends since his student’s times. So, in particular, there were works "The Harvesting of Wine Grapes" (gypsum), "Portrait of Borkaniuk" (wood), "Woodcutter" (wood) and others.

The works of Mykhailo Popovych are characterized by realistic authenticity of the depicted. For example, his bust "The Portrait of Yosyp Bokshai" differs not only in portrait resemblance, but also in the author's vision of the person from the inside. Monument to Oleksandr Pushkin, that since 1979 has been settled on the square with the same name in Uzhhorod, is made laconically, but also quite realistic.

The sculptor was able to convey an important idea with the help of details, for example, in the case of a lone horse, left without a rider – in this way the atmosphere of the battle was successfully transferred. The images embodied by Mykhailo Popovych retain the era, the country, the time.

Later the author began to experiment – he perfectly managed to combine materials and techniques of execution. The master even managed to imitate metal, using other materials (the work “F. Dzerzhynskyi”, 1983).

During the last years of his life the sculptor dreamt of working with small plastic, but his fingers did not serve well.

Since 1956, Mykhailo Popovych has been an active participant in regional, all-Ukrainian and foreign exhibitions. His works are placed on houses, decorate sanatoriums, and squares. Some of the works were purchased by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, they are kept in collections of museums of Ukraine and Russia.