Ivan Padalka

Ivan Padalka

The Village Photographer

Ivan Ivanovych Padalka (Ukrainian: Івaн Івaнович Пaдалка: 15 November 1894, Zhornoklyovy, Drabiv Raion — 13 July 1937, Kiev) was a Ukrainian painter, art professor and author who was executed during the Great Purge.

Biography

He was one of eight children born to a farming family of modest means. He began his education at the local parish school, where he first displayed a talent for art. His abilities were noticed by a local nobleman, who helped him to finance studies at the State Ceramics Vocational School in Myrhorod with Opanas Slastion. His work was often held up as a model for the class. He worked there until 1913, when he was excluded for organizing revolutionary activities.

He then went to Poltava and found a position at the Ethnographic Museum, where they made copies of Ukrainian carpet designs for a weaving workshop in Kiev owned by Bogdan Khanenko, who was a major patron of the arts. His earnings enabled him to enroll at the short-lived Kiev Art School. His works were regularly exhibited there and he began to illustrate children's books.

In 1917, after finishing his studies there, he transferred to the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts, where he became a student in the workshop of Mykhailo Boychuk. While there, he was largely involved in decorative work for buildings, designing posters and creating various revolutionary materials for public display. He also received a commission from the State Publishing House to illustrate a collection of children's stories called Барвінок (Periwinkles). He worked on that project together with Boychuk's younger brother Tymofiy.

After graduating in 1920, he returned to Myrhorod and became a teacher at his former ceramics school. Later, he taught the same subject at a technical school in Kiev. His proficiency in his chosen specialty was widely recognized, so he was able to secure a position at the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute, where he worked from 1925 to 1934. That year, he returned to Kiev to accept an appointment as a Professor at the State Academy.

In 1936, he was arrested and tortured by the NKVD on charges of counterrevolutionary activities, related to his Ukrainian nationalism. In July, the following year, he was executed by firing squad, together with his former mentor and friend, Boychuk, and the painter Vasily Sedlyar. He was rehabilitated in 1958.

External links

• Detailed biography @ Rodovid
• Марко Роберт Стех «Очима культури» № 37. "The Heritage of Boychukism" @ The Kharkiv Regional Society
• "The Cock was a Braggart", folk poem with illustrations by Padalka