Exhibition ‘Holodomor: Through the Eyes of Ukrainian Artists’ to Open at Diplomatic Academy

From 22-30 November, the Hennadii Udovenko Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine will host an exhibition of paintings from the private collection of Morgan Williams, President of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, entitled “Holodomor: Through the Eyes of Ukrainian Artists.”

The exhibition will feature more than 50 works by Ukrainian artists: Mykola Bondarenko, Vira Barynova-Kuleba, Nestor Kyzenko, Nina Marchenko, Mykola Shevtsov, Volodymyr Kutkin, Ivan Novobranets, and Ilko Myronenko.

The event aims to draw attention to one of the greatest tragedies of the Ukrainian people by means of fine arts. Virtually all of the collection’s works were created after 1988 when it was first officially acknowledged that millions of Ukrainians were starved to death from 1932-1933 as Ukrainian artists had not been allowed to depict the national catastrophe of the Ukrainian nation in their works for 70 years.

Hennadiy Nadolenko, director of the Diplomatic Academy, said, “The Holodomor in Ukraine is one of the most terrible pages in history, a wound that bleeds till the present day and requires a proper international legal assessment of the whole world and the victory of historical justice. This unique collection of paintings dedicated to the genocide of the Ukrainian people pursues this goal.”

In turn, Morgan Williams, President of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, summed up, “Artists are among the first to react to tragic events and tell people about them. But it took them more than 60 years in Ukraine to start talking about it. That is why today it is very important that Ukrainian artists turn to their history and tell the truth about what happened. Ukrainians need to know more about the most tragic page in the history of their people, to know that the Ukrainian nation lost millions of people as a result of man-made famine.”

Natalia Tolub