Yuri Yegorov was one of the most prominent Ukrainian artists of the 2nd half of the 20 century, a classic of Odesa school painting. Yegorov created easel and monumental paintings, drawings, tapestries, ceramics, stained glass and mosaics.
Yuriy Yegorov was born in Stalingrad to a couple of ballet dancers. Romantic musical theater, which flings the human into sublime state, affected the impressionable boy’s identity, defining the personality of the characters of his future works. Influenced by theateras a synthetic art form,Yuriy Yegorov combined different monumental techniques, such as painting, mosaics, and tapestries.
In 1941, Yegorov’s family evacuated to Tashkent and then moved to Krasnoyarsk together with the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater. In Krasnoyarsk, the future painter met Kyiv artists
Stepan Kirichenko and Zinaida Volkovitskaya, who became his first teachers. They introduced the young man to the world of art and showed him albums of Cézanne, Velazquez, and other painters. When he was 16, the amateur painter joined the Union of Artists of Krasnoyarsk city. Having returned to Odesa in 1946, YuriyYegorov was accepted to the 4th year of the painting department of Odesa Art College, where he studied in the studio of Professor Theophilus Fraerman. In 1948, he entered the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Repin (USSR Academy of Arts). As a student of the 4th year, he moved to the faculty of monumental painting of the Art- Industrial College named after Mukhina(teachers: Johanson, Rublev, Savin). In 1955,Yegorov moved to Odesa to teach at the Grekov Odessa Art school until 1957. He was the rector of the Odesa Academy of Arts in 1995–1997.
Since the beginning of the 1960s, a group of creative young people, later regarded as the Odesa non-conformist artists, gathered around Yegorov. In fact, Yegorov himself was not a non-conformist artist; however, he strongly helped and supported young artists who have chosen the path of confrontation with the system. It was Yegorov who first spoke about the Odesa school of painting and formed its basic tenets, thus becoming its most prominent representative and theorist.
He participated in numerous domestic and foreign exhibitions of painting, graphics and monumental art. Since 1958, he was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. He was acknowledged as the Honored Artist of Ukrainian USSR in 1989 and the People’s Artist of Ukraine in 2008.
After the artist’s death in June 2009, a permanent exhibition of his workswas opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Odesa.
In 2018, Yuriy Yegorov`s Fund presented the artist`s personal exhibition in National Art Museum of Ukraine.
Solo exhibitions
2012 | NT-Art Gallery.Odesa, Ukraine |
2008 | NT-Art Gallery.Odesa, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2006 | Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine |
2001 | The Air Gallery, Art London.Com Ltd, London, England |
1996 | Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine |
1991 | Red Square Gallery. London, England |
1990 | Red Square Gallery. London, England |
1989 | Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow, USSR |
1988 | The second exhibition of muralist artists. Exhibition hall of Artists` Union of Odesa. Odesa, USSR |
1987 | Central Exhibition Hall. Leningrad, USSR |
1977 | Central House of Artists. Moscow, USSR |
1977 | Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine |
1976 | Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine |
1961 | Art Gallery Odesa. Odesa, Ukraine |
2018 | National Art Museum of Ukraine. Kyiv, Ukraine |
Group exhibitions
2015 | Constellations.Yuriy Yegorov, Oleksander Roitburd. Dymchuk Gallery. Kyiv, Ukraine |
2013 | Odesa School. Traditions and Actuality. Art Arsenal. Kyiv, Ukraine. |
2013 | Odesa School. Traditions and Actuality. ArtDonbas Exhibition Hall Donetsk, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2013 | Bebelya str. 19. Apartment Exhibitions. NT-Art Gallery. Odesa, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2013 | Bebelya str. 19. Apartment Exhibitions. IV Fine Art Ukraine. Art Arsenal. Kyiv, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2012 | The Middle Leg. NT-Art Gallery. Odesa, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2012 | Music of the World. NT-Art Gallery. Odesa, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2010 | II Fine Art Ukraine. Art Arsenal. Kyiv, Ukraine |
2008 | How young you were… Odesa nonconformist artists. 1960s- 1980s in the collections of Felix Kohriht and AnatoliyDymchuk”. NT-Art Gallery. Odesa, Ukraine (catalogue) |
2005 | The Odesa Group. Paintings and Graphic Works by Six Major Artists of the Odesa School. Chambers Gallery. London, UK (catalogue) |
2004 | Odesa School nowadays. Half of the century together. Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine (catalogue) |
1999 | Exhibition of Odesa artists. Exhibition Hall of the Artists` Union. Kyiv, Ukraine |
1999 | Mamai. Exhibition of the 4th World ‘Ukrainists’ Congress. Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine |
1993 | Impreza-93 3d International Biennial. Ivano-Frankivsk. Ukraine (catalogue) |
1987 | The first exhibition of muralists. Museum of Art, Museum of Western and Oriental Art. Odesa, USSR |
1965 | participated in republican and all-Soviet exhibitions |
Works in museum collections
Zimmerli Art Museum. New Jersey, USA
Odesa Art Museum. Odesa, Ukraine
Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow, Russia
Art Museum. Mykolaiv, Ukraine
Podolsky Art Gallery, Greenwich
National Art Museum of Ukraine. Kiev, Ukraine