Mykola Pymonenko

Painter, graphic artist, teacher. Born to icon-painter Kornilo Pymonenko in the suburb of Pryorka in Kiev (1862). Helped his father to decorate local churches and trained in an icon-painting studio at the Kiev Monastery of the Caves (1873–76). Studied under Józef-Kazimierz Budkiewicz and Khariton Platonov at the Nikolai Murashko School of Drawing in Kiev (1876–82) and under Volodymyr Orlovsky at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1882–84). Forced by poor health to leave the Academy with the title of teacher of drawing and returned to Kiev (1884), where he taught at the Nikolai Murashko School of Drawing (1884–1900) and Kiev Polytechnic Institute (1900–12) and helped to found the Kiev School of Art (1901). Member of the Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft (1887), Fellowship of South Russian Artists (1895), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1899) and Union internationale des beaux-arts et des lettres in Paris (1909). Honorary free member of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1891), academician (1904). Painted icons and frescoes for St Vladimir’s Cathedral in Kiev (1890s). Married Volodymyr Orlovsky’s foster daughter Alexandra (1893). Collaborated with the Community of St Eugene (1903). Died in Kiev and buried at Lukianov Cemetery (1912). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1885). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1885–93), Fellowship of South Russian Artists (1891–96), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1893–1911), Salon des artistes français (1909, gold medal), international exhibitions in Berlin, Paris, London and Rome (from 1907) and posthumous one-man shows in St Petersburg (1913) and Moscow (1916).