Anatolii Bazylevych

Anatolii Bazylevych studied at Kharkiv Institute of Arts. Training under Yefrem Svitlychnyi, Hryhorii Bondarenko and Yosyp Daits is recorded. The recorded working language is Ukrainian. Distinctions recorded are People's Painter of Ukraine, Medal "For Distinguished Labour", Honored Art Worker of the Ukrainian SSR and VDNKh silver medal.

• Name — Anatolii Bazylevych • Native Name — Анатолій Дмитрович Базилевич • Birth Name — Anatolii Dmytrovych Bazylevych • Born — 7 June 1926 • Birthplace — Zhmerynka, Vinnytsia Okruha, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union • Died — 30 June 2005 • Place of death — Kyiv, Ukraine • Resting Place — Baikove Cemetery, Kyiv • Occupation — Illustrator, graphic artist • Years Active — 1950s–2000s • Notable Works — Illustrations to Eneida by Ivan Kotliarevsky • Awards — Merited Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1969); People's Artist of Ukraine (1993); Medal "For Labour Distinction"

Bazylevych was born on 7 June 1926 in the town of Zhmerynka, then in the Vinnytsia region of the Ukrainian SSR, into the family of an engineer. He began to draw in childhood and in 1933 moved with his parents to Mariupol, where he attended an art circle at a metallurgical plant. During the occupation of Mariupol by Nazi Germany, the Bazylevych family was forcibly taken to work in Germany; his father died from wounds received during a bombing, and his mother later managed to return to Mariupol with her son. In 1947 Bazylevych entered the Kharkiv Art Institute, where his teachers included Soviet artists Hryhorii Bondarenko, Iosif Daits and Adolf Strakhov. His graduation work consisted of illustrations to Igor Muratov's Bukovynska povist (Bukovinian Tale). Bazylevych's first published book illustrations were for Gennadii Brezhnev's Fables, issued in 1951 by the Kharkiv book and newspaper publishing house. The following year his illustrations to Ivan Krylov's Fables were published by the Kyiv publishing house Molod (Molodizh). After graduating from the institute in 1953 he was assigned to work in Kyiv, where he collaborated with a range of publishing houses, including Molod, Raduga, Dnipro, Mystetstvo, Sovetskii pisatel, Sovetska shkola and the Kharkiv journal Znamia. From 1956 Bazylevych participated in all‑Union, republican and international exhibitions, and he held solo exhibitions in Kyiv in 1961 and 1996. In the same year, 1956, he became a member of the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR. Bazylevych died on 30 June 2005 and was buried at Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.

Bazylevych is particularly noted for his long‑term work on illustrations to Ivan Kotliarevsky's Eneida, on which he worked for about ten years, constantly revising and adding new images. His drawings for the poem combined expressive, flexible line with a limited range of local colours, and the characters are rendered with such solidity that many illustrations appear as independent easel‑style compositions. The depth of his engagement with the literary text was such that the illustrations have become inseparable from the book and are often regarded as a landmark of Ukrainian printed graphics. For his illustrations to the 1968 Eneida edition published by Dnipro in Kyiv, Bazylevych received the honorary title Merited Artist of the Ukrainian SSR. His wider oeuvre includes illustrations for numerous works of Ukrainian, Russian and world literature, and he is frequently described as an outstanding illustrator of "immortal books".

His son, Oleksii Anatoliiovych Bazylevych (born 6 February 1956 in Kyiv), is a Ukrainian graphic artist and book illustrator.

Anatolii Bazylevych is recorded as graphic artist, draftsperson and illustrator.