Shevchenkiana by Ivan Marchuk

Marchuk painted the first portrait of Taras Shevchenko at the age of thirteen, when he was in the 7th grade of a rural school in Ternopil Oblast. In 1964, the painter won a student competition with an image of Shevchenko in oil on canvas. He chose the lines from Kobzar as the title of the work: "I am punished, I am tormented, but I do not repent." Marchuk's "Shevchenkiana" consists of 42 paintings (out of a hundred planned), which were made in tempera (1983-1984). Marchuk wanted to fully appreciate the environment in which Shevchenko made his prophecies and created vivid images through poetry. Therefore, he worked in Ukrainian villages, and not a single painting was created in the city. == Public and critical reception ==

Dmytro Pavlychko notes the originality of the interpretation of Kobzar in this way: In 1994, the Dnipro Publishing House published Kobzar with illustrations from Ivan Marchuk's Shevchenkiana. In 2014, the catalog "Shevchenkiana by Ivan Marchuk" was published in Ternopil, that effort was initiated and funded by the rector(president) of Ternopil National Economic University Andrii Krysovatyi. Marchuk's paintings were exhibited at the Shevchenko National Preserve (1983-1985, 1995, 1997), the National Museum Taras Shevchenko (1991, 1998), the House of the National Writers' Union of Ukraine (1984), the National Art Museum (2000), and others. The paintings are kept in the Shevchenko National Preserve, while the portrait of the poet and an illustration to his message "To the Dead and the Living" are kept in the National Museum of Taras Shevchenko. ==List of paintings==

Marchuk named individual paintings after specific stanzas from poems by Taras Shevchenko. ==Awards==

In 1997, Ivan Marchuk was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine for his series of works "Shevchenkiana" from the collection "Voice of my soul". ==See also==