Faces of Ukraine ~ 1950 – 1980 ~

The Ukrainian Institute of America is delighted to present “Faces of Ukraine, 1950s-1980s: Highlights of the Collection of Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady.” The show will open with a reception for invited guests as well as the public from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 5 at the headquarters of the Ukrainian Institute of America at 2 E. 79th Street, New York City. It will continue until July 20.

“Faces of Ukraine” features portraits and group scenes of Ukrainians and their work and home lives in the post-World War II period up until the mid-1980s. Fourteen of the approximately 50 paintings that will be shown have never been seen before in the U.S.

All of the paintings were collected by the late Jurii Maniichuk, a lawyer and consultant who was born in Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1980s. While working as a legal consultant for the World Bank in newly-independent Ukraine in the 1990s, Maniichuk decided to help struggling artists by buying and collecting Socialist Realist art, which had suddenly fallen from favor. The result of his efforts was a collection of close to 150 paintings by leading artists in Ukraine in that period. Maniichuk died unexpectedly while visiting Kiev in 2009 but his wife, Rose Brady, continues to work on his mission to have the art seen, studied and enjoyed by the public.

“We are very happy to present, once again, the works from the Maniichuk-Brady collection,” says Walter Hoydysh, the Ukrainian Institute’s art director and co-curator of the exhibit. “The soul of a nation is its people. So this time we selected works that highlight the daily life, work and aspirations of the people of Ukraine.” The first exhibit of the Maniichuk-Brady collection at the Ukrainian Institute of America was dedicated to Maniichuk and shown in 2012. Olena Martynyuk, a Ukrainian-born Ph.D. candidate in art history at Rutgers University, is once again co-curator of the “Faces of Ukraine” exhibit. About 60 paintings of the Maniichuk-Brady collection are on long-term loan to the Ukrainian Institute through 2018. A dozen can be seen when the Ukrainian Institute is open, on the fourth floor.

For more information on the Maniichuk-Brady collection, please see www.maniichuk.com.