Bohdan Soroka Богдан Сорока was a Ukrainian graphic artist. He worked in black-and-white, and later in his life added color linocut technique. He belonged to the generation of Ukrainian artists of the 1960s who used their art as protest against the oppressive Soviet regime. His work in graphic arts is characterized by its expressionistic style and imaginative pictorial representations. He is also a strong communicator and his prowess lies in his ability to speak to the viewer directly and clearly through the images he puts on paper. Soroka often drew inspiration for his works from Ukrainian folklore, evident in his print series such as “Folkloric Motives”, “Slavic Mythology”, “Kupalo Festival Games”, and “Proverbs”. Bohdan Soroka has exhibited in Ukraine, England, Germany, France, Poland, Canada, and the United States. He received first prize at the International Ex Libris Competition in Vilnius in 1989, and was a founder and the first chair of the graphic department at the LvivNational Academy of Art. He was also known as a major collector of Hutsulian folk art, especially wooden candelabras, of which he had the largest collection in Ukraine. His Memoirs are currently a bestseller in Ukraine. They were included on a list of the ten best contemporary Ukrainian biographical prose works.
Biography
Bohdan Soroka was born in Lviv, Ukraine on September 2, 1940 in Brygidky prison, where his mother was a political prisoner held by the Soviets. Bohdan Soroka was raised by his grandparents, well-known mathematician Myron Zarytsky and his wife Volodymyra, since his parents, Kateryna Zarytska and Mykhailo Soroka, were both serving time in the Gulag as a Soviet political prisoners. Soroka graduated from the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Art in 1964 and associated himself with the dissident political and artistic movement of the 1960s, which blossomed in Ukraine after the death of Stalin. His first well-known prints, created in 1969 were used as illustrations in the book of poetry by dissident poet, and a friend of his, Ihor Kalynets. The book was published in London in 1970, and as a consequence, Soroka’s art was banned from public exhibits by the Soviet government for the next 13 years. Nevertheless, the artist continue to work and create new prints in his small apartment in Lviv, where he resided with his grandmother, his wife Lyubov Soroka, and two daughters, Solomia and Ustyna. During this time of artistic oppression, Soroka created many of his now-famous print series, including Slavic Mythology, emblems and Symbols, Angels and Musicians, The Four Seasons, Lviv Architecture and March of the Gnomes. At that time he also gathered his collection, the largest in Ukraine, of Hutsulian trijci. During the “perestroika” period, and after Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, Bohdan Soroka actively joined the artistic life of the new state. Personal exhibits were held in Ukraine, Canada, the United States, France, England, and Germany. In 1993 he was invited to be on the faculty of the Lviv National Academy of Art, and in 1996 he created the Industrial Graphics Department in this institution, and became its first chair, He worked there until 2006. Bohdan Soroka was greatly respected and admired amongst his friends and followers and was considered a person of an immense integrity and honesty. He was a recipient of the Order for the Intellectual Bravery from the Independent Cultural Magazine “Ї” in 2012. Soroka’s works are part of collections of national importance in museums in Lviv, Kyiv, Kaniv, Kolodiazhne, and in numerous museums abroad, such as Vatican, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Savannah, GA, Brussels, Vilnius, Munich. Bohdan Soroka died unexpectedly during a medical procedure on April 8, 2015 in Rzeszów, Poland. Majorworks: Black-and-white series: Ukrainian Mythology, 1970 Kupalo Festival Games, 1974 Children Games, 1974 Skovoroda Symbols, 1975 March of Gnomes, 1980 Uzbekistan Travels, 1982 The Architecture of Lviv, 1977-1986 The Passions of Christ, 1990 Emblems and Symbols, 1996 Wooden Churches, 2000 Color series: March of Gnomes, 2001-2004 Kupalo Festival Games, 2005-2009 “Hetmans”, 2006-2008 The Seasons, 2008-2009 Musicians, 2009 Angels and Music, 2013 Nativity, 2014 Exhibits:
Personal Exhibitions
Lviv—1988, 1989, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2011
Kyiv—1987, 1990, Odessa—2016 Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton —1991, 2000–01, 2006 Philadelphia —1992 New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Washington, DC —1998-99, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 Munich —1993, 2000 Paris—1995 Rochdale, London—1996 Detroit--2004, 2009 Chicago—2004, 2010, 2016 Ann Arbor, MI--2005 Jackson, MI--2009
Selected important group exhibitions
Contemporary European Bookplate—Brussels, 1972
Twelve Ukrainian Artists—Calgary, 1991 Work on Paper—Edmonton, 1993 “Lviv ’91—Vidrodzhennia” The Biennial of Ukrainian Art—Lviv, 1991 “Sources of Freedom” Exhibition of Contemporary Art—Berlin, Wroclaw, Lviv, 1997 Exhibition at Grazhda, Hunter, NY 1991-2015 annually
