Mykola Pymonenko

Who was Mykola Pymonenko?

Mykola Kornylovych Pymonenko, sometimes spelled Pimonenko was a Ukrainian painter. One of the most eminent Ukrainian genre painters Pymonenko was widely acclaimed in the Russian Empire; A member of the Imperial Academy of Arts since 1904 and of a progressive Peredvizhniki artistic movement and the turn of the century.

A number of Pimonenko's paintings are, in fact, generalized portraits which are the embodiment of a popular ideal of the working man. The artist also turned to the theme of peasant labour, depicting typical scenes from everyday life against the backdrop of a landscape.

Pymonenko created illustrations for several of Taras Shevchenko's poems. In total, he produced over 700 genre scenes, landscapes, and portraits. Pymonenko also took part in the painting of the murals in Saint Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kiev.

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Mykola Pymonenko. Fortune-Telling on Christmastide. 1888. Oil on canvas. 111 × 76.5 cm. The State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg

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Harvester, Oil on canvas. 137 x 75 cm. 1889, National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kiev