Sonia Lewitska
Sonia Lewitska ( Ukrainian Софія Пилипівна Левицька / Sofija Pylypiwna Lewyzka ; born March 9, 1874 in Vilhivtsi , Podolia Governorate , Russian Empire ; † September 20, 1937 in Paris ) was a Ukrainian painter who worked in Paris .
life and work
Sonia Levitska was born as Sofija Pylypiwna Lewyzka in the village of Vilhivtsi (today Vilhivtsi in the Ukrainian Oblast of Khmelnitsky ). Her father Philipp Levitski was a landowner in the village of Vilhivtsi and a school inspector of the Podolia Governorate, her grandfather an Orthodox clergyman . Her brother Modest Levitski (1866-1932) became a doctor and writer, an activist in the Ukrainian national movement, in 1919 head of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Greece, then a lecturer at the Ukrainian Business Academy in Podebrady ( Czechoslovakia ). Sonia spent her childhood between her home village Vilhivtsi and Kiev , where her family owned a house. Nineteen years old she married a Mr. Malinowski who soon turned out to be an alcoholic . She gave birth to her daughter Olga, who was mentally retarded. The marriage failed, and Sonia Lewitska returned to her parents with her daughter.
She began her painting studies in Kiev in the art studio of Serhiy Switoslawskyj . In 1905 she moved to Paris and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts . There she met some representatives of Fauvism and the painter Jean Marchand , whom she soon married. From 1910 she participated in the Paris art salons, in 1913 she had a solo exhibition in the Berthe Weill gallery . In 1912 she showed her works in Moscow at the exhibition of modern art in France, together with Henri Matisse , Albert Marquet , Robert Delaunay and others. In 1932 and 1933 she exhibited her pictures in Lviv . In 1937 she took part in the retrospective Femmes artistes d'Europe organized by Laure Albin Guillot at the Jeu de Paume Museum.
In 1921, together with the poet Roger Allard, she translated Nikolai Gogol's novel Evenings in the Village near Dikanka , which she illustrated herself. Until the mid-1920s, Lewitska visited the south of France every summer, where she painted landscapes of Provence and portraits. There was a crisis in his marriage to Jean Marchand. After the October Revolution , the Levitskas family living in Ukraine fell into poverty and sent their disabled daughter Olga to Paris.
Since the early 1930s Sonia Lewitska suffered from a psychosis , which was also reflected in her work. She died after trying to poison herself.
literature
- François Roussier, Sonia Lewitska. Catalog of the Musée Mainssieux, Voiron, 2005.
- Vita Susak, Ukrainian artists in Paris. 1900-1939. Rodovid Press, Lviv 2010, ISBN 978-9-66784540-7 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lewitska, Sonia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Левицька, Софія Пилипівна (Ukrainian); Lewyzka, Sofija Pylypiwna (transcribed in Ukrainian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Ukrainian painter, active in France |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 9, 1874 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vilhivtsi , Podolia Governorate , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 20, 1937 |
| Place of death | Paris |