Eduard Gudzenko

Gudzenko was born in Cherkasy, Ukraine in 1938. During his lifetime, Gudzenko's attempts to exhibit his work were criticized, both by official authorities and by colleagues in the shop. Later, the artist was accused of Jewish cosmopolitanism, in particular, for the work "Self-Portrait in a Yarmulke", exhibited in the Cherkasy Gallery in 1980. Gudzenko had only one personal exhibition, in 1987. His career became known only after his death through the promotion of admirers of his work who organized his first personal exhibition in 2007 (a year after his death) in his hometown at the Cherkasy Art Museum. In 2008, his works were shown in Kyiv. In 2014-2015, Russian connoisseurs of fine arts were able to get acquainted with the works of the Ukrainian artist for the first time. This became possible thanks to the exhibition of his works, which were presented to the general public in the Marble Hall of the Russian Museum, in St. Petersburg. In 2017, a solo exhibition was held in the halls of the art gallery of Zurab Tsereteli, the department of the Russian Academy of Arts, in Moscow. The retrospective exposition presented more than 70 works. The exhibition consisted of several thematic blocks and covered the artist's work from early sketches of the late 1950s, graphic sketches, to his latest canvases of the early 2000s. On meter canvases landscapes and still lifes, portraits, genre scenes and decorative fantasies. Art historians note that for the works of this provincial artist such features are inherent, such as - a broad brush, a pasty brushstroke, an open color. His works are fundamentally different from ethnographic painting and from the official art of that period.

• 2007 - "Eduard Gudzenko. 1938-2006 », Cherkassy, Museum of Fine Arts, September 19 - September 29 • 2008 - "Eduard Gudzenko. 1938-2006 », Kyiv, National Union of Artists of Ukraine, March 13 - March 24 • 2014-2015 - "Eduard Gudzenko. 1938-2006 », St. Petersburg, Russian Museum, December 18 - February 16 • 2017 - "Eduard Gudzenko. 1938-2006 ", Moscow, Russian Academy of Arts, February 28 - March 26

• 1966 - Republican exhibition of works by young artists of the Ukrainian SSR, Kyiv • 1987 - Exhibition of works by young artists Yevgeny Nayden, Eduard Gudzenko, Sergei Sosulin in the Cherkasy organization of the Union of Artists of Ukraine of the Ukrainian SSR, Cherkassy. Published in catalog of Cherkassy, Oblpoligraizdat, 1987 • 2007, November 1–10 - exhibition at Art-Kyiv, in the gallery of the Charitable Foundation "Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Art", Ukrainian House, Kyiv,. Catalog "Art-Kyiv", Kyiv.

Eduard Gudzenko's official website