Kyrychenko Stepan

Kyrychenko Stepan (1911–1988)

Stepan Andriyovych Kyrychenko was an outstanding Ukrainian graphic artist, painter, and monumental artist. He was born in 1911 in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine.

From 1934 to 1941, he studied at the Kyiv Art Institute under Sofiia Nalepinska-Boychuk, Mykola Rokytskyi, and Oleksandr Sirotenko. During the Second World War (1941–1943), he was evacuated to Krasnoyarsk, where he worked as an artist on propaganda trains serving the Stalingrad and Southwestern Fronts.

From 1943 to 1945, he lived and worked in Moscow. Together with other artists, he participated in the mosaic decoration of the Palace of Soviets (1945), as well as in the monumental decorative painting of the Main Pavilion and the pavilion of the Ukrainian SSR at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (1950–1954).

A member of the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR since 1941, Kyrychenko regularly participated in republican, all-Union, and international exhibitions from 1943 onward. From 1954, he lived and worked in Kyiv. Beginning in 1955, he collaborated closely with Nadiia Klein.

Kyrychenko founded and led a mosaic workshop in Kyiv and later headed the Section of Monumental Art. From 1958 to 1980, he served as chairman of the Section of Monumental Art of the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR.

He was the recipient of numerous state awards and professional distinctions.

Stepan Kyrychenko died in Kyiv in 1988.