Visitors are checking out exposition in the newly opened private museum of modern art in this file Dec. 17, 2009 photo. It’s located on 17 Hlybochytska Street and houses some 4,500 exhibits. (Oleksiy Boyko) Just before the New Year, Kyiv got a new point of interest as the biggest private museum of modern art in Ukraine opened in Podil, replacing a former construction materials supermarket. Although many people must have surely grieved the closure of the home store, every cloud has a silver lining. Instead of paints and toilet bowls visitors to the same building can now admire paintings by Tetyana Yablonska and sculptures by Ivan Kavaleridze.

“It is said that Ukrainian art school along with its regional schools is not known in the world. But first we have to collect the art and show it here, in Ukraine,” said Serhiy Tsyupko, founder and owner of the museum.

Tsyupko, a partner in jewelry, banking and construction businesses, bought his first paintings from his friend, artist Mykhaylo Shevchenko, when he was only 26. Now, 20 years later, his art collection has grown to more than 4,500 items. In 2005 he started a small private museum. To accommodate it he rented the ground floor and a basement of a building in Podil. His own three-storey building in another part of the same district he rented out to Oldi, the construction materials supermarket. Last year the rental cost for the museum became too high when Oldi’s contract expired. Thus the museum was moved to a new location, which was several times bigger.

“It is really the biggest private museum of modern Ukrainian art,” said Yuriy Vakulenko, director of the Museum of Russian art in Kyiv, adding that Tsyupko holds the biggest publicly known collection of Ukrainian art.

Even though the new location was 3,500 square meters in size, it was only big enough to showcase a sixth of the collection. Still, this is more than 700 paintings and sculptures of Ukrainian artists from the early 20th century to the present day. Among them are priceless works by Ivan Kavaleridze, Ivan Trush, Albert Erdeli, Tetyana and Olena Yablonska, Mykhaylo Derehuz, Serhiy Hryhoryev, Valentyn Bernadskiy, Mykola Hlyshchenko, Halyna Neledva and many others including modern artists such as Oleksandr Roytburdt and Vlada Ralko.

The rest of the artworks still remain in storage built on the territory of a Kyiv jewelry plant specially for this purpose. “It’s because there is good security there,” joked Tsyupko, who is president of the Jewelers’ Association.

The most expensive work in the collection is a marine landscape by Ivan Aivazovsky, from his “Moonlit Seascape” series. Aivazovsky is best known as a Russian artist but he was, in fact, born in the Crimean city Feodosiya, in Ukraine. “A work such as this costs $200,000-500,000,” said Mykhaylo Shevchenko, the museum’s director.

Nobody has ever valued the whole collection, but according to Tsyupko, the frames for the paintings alone cost over $1 million.

The museum has a dedicated exhibition of socialist realist art, the only art trend that was approved of by the Soviet authorities and party leaders. Some of the paintings depict Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader of the October Revolution in 1917. “Artists in Soviet times used to call Lenin a bread winner because there were a lot of commissions for such work,” Shevchenko explained. “Artists could paint him even with their eyes closed.”

In 1972 Ivan Tykhiy created a canvas “Lenin in the Field.” Several years later Vasyl Petukhov painted “V.I. Lenin with Like-Minded People.” Portraits of Lenin as well as other socialist realist paintings can be found on the second and third floors of the museum. The first floor is designed to house temporary exhibitions of regional art schools and young Ukrainian artists. At present, works by artists from Odesa are on display.

Tsyupko has lots of plans for the development of the museum. Among them is the opening of a museum of Ukrainian gems and a kid’s room inspired by children’s author Astrid Lindgren, an exhibition of Kharkiv artists and presentation of a part of the museum’s collection abroad.

At the same time Tsyupko continues buying new artworks. “What I need is to earn more,” he said. “I hope my children will continue my work [in the museum].” If that doesn’t happen, he promised to hand his collection over to the state.


Museum of Modern Art

17 Hlybochytska, 201-4945

Open Tue-Sun 11 a.m. till 7 p.m.

Tickets for adults Hr 10, for students Hr 5. Free admission for children under 16 years old and pensioners.

Tours in English, Ukrainian or Russia are offered for Hr 40.

Family tour (for up to eight people) – Hr 30.


Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be reached at faryna@kyivpost.com.