Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts

Main story: a Ukrainian art school open to Czechs

The Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts was a private higher art school established by Ukrainian émigrés in Prague in late 1923. Its main organiser and director was Dmytro Antonovych (R0019), already researched in wave 03. The Studio taught drawing, painting, graphic art, sculpture, applied arts and architecture; it welcomed Czechs, Slovaks and other students as well as Ukrainians. This is one of the clearest examples of cultural interaction that can be shown to Czech visitors through actual artworks. [A01; A02]

The greatest advantage for the future website is the existence of digitised works and an open Czech museum catalogue. The Czech National Library’s Slavonic Library holds the Ukrainian émigré art collection T-O-UM: 481 inventory units with works by 54 artists (according to the specialised NKP catalogue). Some works belong to Studio teachers and graduates, while others come from the Museum of Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence and other artists. Not all 54 creators were students of this particular school. [A01]

Origins in 1922–1923

According to research on Ukraine’s archival portal, Dmytro Antonovych created a plastic-arts circle in Prague in 1922. The circle held a public exhibition in July 1923; the Ukrainian Society of Plastic Arts emerged late that year and opened the Studio on 24 December 1923. These are three different stages: an informal circle, a society and an educational institution. Each should be preserved as a separate event with the corresponding relationship; legal IDs should not automatically multiply before the society’s and school’s statutes have been checked. [A03; A04]

The Studio developed within Prague’s Ukrainian academic life. Devětsil and avant-garde exhibitions were meanwhile active in the Czech artistic milieu. One separately verified event can provide a bridge: an Oleksandr Archypenko exhibition took place at the Rudolfinum from 24 April to June 1923, organised by the Czech artistic association Devětsil, with Karel Teige working on it. However, the exhibition’s existence does not prove that Antonovych’s Studio organised it or that a particular student studied there. [A06]

Programme, teachers and openness

The Encyclopedia of Ukraine describes the art school as a private institution with a four-year programme. Its teaching circle included Dmytro Antonovych (art history), Serhii Tymoshenko (architecture, until 1929), Volodymyr Sichynsky (perspective), Kostiantyn Stakhovsky (sculpture), Ivan Mozalevsky and Robert Lisovsky (graphic art), Serhii Mako and Ivan Kulets (painting), and specialists in aesthetics, anatomy and classical archaeology. According to the encyclopedia, many teachers worked without remuneration. [A02]

The graph needs typed roles: founded, directed, taught_subject, studied_at, graduated_from, exhibited_at. The same years and a single employment status must not be assigned to everyone listed. Robert Lisovsky, for example, taught graphic art from 1929, while Serhii Tymoshenko taught architecture until 1929. [A02]

The Czech Slavonic Library notes that people of different nationalities could study there. This is genuine institutional openness, but Czech and Slovak student numbers, graduates’ names and citizenship require checking against student books. [A01]

Pupils, graduates and artwork catalogues

Artists associated with the school include Vasyl Kasiian, Yurii Vovk, Oksana Liaturynska, Halyna Mazepa, Kateryna Antonovych, Sofiia Zarytska-Omelchenko, Ivan Ivanets, Mykola Krychevsky, Pavlo Hromnytsky, Petro Kholodny, Yeva Biss, Vasyl Khmeliuk and others. However, “named among graduates in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine”, “a work is in the museum collection” and “studied with a particular teacher” must be distinguished. These are three different forms of evidence, rather than a single generalised edge. [A01; A02]

Oksana Liaturynska, for example, is also a literary figure of the “Prague School”. A separate personal card with two cultural directions — poetry and plastic arts — is appropriate for her. Shared names of movements and organisations do not mean that all artists necessarily belonged to one formal society. [A02]

The Studio held student-work exhibitions from 1925; the encyclopedia reports 13 exhibitions by 1939. Czech art-exhibition catalogues for 1820–1950 and surviving posters may help establish precise dates, halls, participants’ names and photographs. Until then, 13 remains an encyclopedic estimate, rather than a catalogue of 13 confirmed addresses. [A02; A06]

How the art collection survived in Prague

The Czech National Library describes the transfer of many works from the Museum of Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence collections to the Slavonic Library. Ukrainian émigré artists’ works were discovered there in 1998; historian Mykola Mushynka described six boxes containing over 800 graphic works. This history of preservation must distinguish the number of works found from the present number of inventory records, which does not necessarily equal the number of individual physical sheets. [A01; A03]

The official T-O-UM collection has 481 units and, according to NKP’s English description, works by 54 artists. During the earlier review, the old eSbírky catalogue showed 484 results for this digital collection and a description of 53 artists. As of 2 November 2026, the old link is unavailable; the current virtual exhibition retains the description of 53 artists, but the new catalogue’s current full result count has not been checked. This is not evidence of falsification: update dates, anonymous or newly attributed creators and counting criteria may differ. However, one figure cannot be presented as immutable before the inventory file and catalogue are compared. [A01; A05]

Importantly, the collection includes other Ukrainian artists whose works were held in the museum, as well as Studio members. The new data structure needs Artwork, Creator, Collection, HoldingInstitution, Exhibition, OriginalOwner, RightsStatement entities and separate provenance / current_custody relationships. [A01; A05]

Categories of art objects and research possibilities

The visible eSbírky description lists surnames including Kateryna Antonovych, Vasyl Kasiian, Robert Lisovsky, Halyna Mazepa and Volodymyr Sichynsky. The interactive website can open their personal cards without duplicating name records from other art museums. [A05]

The institution’s later fate and dating questions

The school continued working even under German occupation, according to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. After the war, its activity declined amid changing political power. The Canadian Encyclopedia of Ukraine gives closure by the communist regime in 1950; the Czech National Library gives 1952 as the end date. Mushynka mentions 1951. [A01; A02; A03]

Reconciliation requires the final school minutes, letters to Prague’s education authorities, ownership and registration status after 1932, the last admissions, the end of courses and the legal liquidation decision. Until these documents are available, closing_year = UNRESOLVED {1950, 1951, 1952}, rather than a randomly selected value. [A01–A03]

Critical contradictions and tasks

Virtual exhibition: “Art rediscovered”

The Czech title is Umění, které se znovu našlo. Narrative: Prague’s Ukrainian community in 1922 → creative association → school in 1923 → teachers and student exhibitions → war and museum collections → 1998: rediscovered works → present eSbírky. Viewers can open the object, technique, artist, biography, source and related events. Such a digital exhibition must not copy every eSbírky image without rights; the first version can contain bibliographical cards linking to the catalogue.

Initial archival requests: the complete T-O-UM inventory; the list of 13 exhibitions; Studio annual reports; premises agreements; Ivan Kulets’s 1932 registration documents; liquidation papers from 1950–1952; museum documents on transfer of the artistic heritage. All references and links below indicate possible research locations, rather than examination of every original artwork.