Card no 520 - Tanya
Painting by Kateryna Biletina
Country Card Sent From: Ukraine
Place that Card Sender Lives: Lviv
Date Received: 27th April 2013
Distance Travelled: 1,176 miles
Time Taken: 10 days
Postcrossing i/d - UA-579727
Kateryna Biletina (sorry - link now dead) studied at the Odessa Art College and then the Kiev Academy of Fine Arts. She is a well-known book illustrator and portrait painter. She paints well known people and then dresses them in traditional costume. I don't know what the musical instrument is that the girl is playing.
"The girls portrayed in these pictures do not wear national costumes in real life but you should see how they change in these costumes! I asked my friends and acquaintances to bring me what they had at home and they brought a lot of ribbons, necklaces, shirts and chemises. It appears practically everyone has grandmothers’ chemises in the far corners of the family wardrobes."
The stamps included both a lovely acorn and oak leaf one and an appropriate girl in traditional costume.
Thank you for putting up a picture of this beautiful postcard, I've been trying to find information on Kateryna Biletina as I've just come across some of her paintings. Unfortunately the link to the Rukotvory article is dead, but the little bit that you wrote about her is very useful.
ReplyDeleteSorry the lnk has died And thanks for letting me know> There doesn't seem to be much about her on the web, does there?
DeleteI did find a note about an exhibition in 2009 but you've probably sen this -
KYIV. A personal exhibition of the Kherson-born artist Kateryna Biletina titled "Ukrayinskyi portret" (Ukrainian portrait) runs at the art gallery "Mytets" in Ukraine's capital. Among the displayed pictures there are unknown portraits, portraits of girls in Ukrainian national costumes and a portrait of Ukrainian politician, leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1928-1950s Roman Shukhevych. "I have no self-portraits, not because I am shy but because people around me are more interesting. But nevertheless I always hear that my portraits looks like me. Works of an artist tell more about an author than such direct decisions as a self-portrait," said Kateryna Biletina.