Professor S.V. Rybin
Honored Culture Worker of Ukraine
Vice-Head of Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts

In the history of Kharkov higher school of arts a special place belongs to the Honored Culture Worker of Ukraine, Professor, Head of Drawing Department of many years – Vasiliy Yakovlevich Lozovoy.
I met him for the first time in 1972, when I was taking exams in Kharkov Industrial Art Institute. He was then a responsible secretary of the selection committee, i.e. in fact he was accepting me to the institute. Even then he seemed to me at once to be a serious and considerate lecturer, well-wishing interlocutor and just a responsive and charming person. In 1979 I became a lecturer of the Drawing Department. At the same time the whole group of young graduates has joined the staff of the Department:
V. Sidorenko, at present the Vice-President of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Director of the Institute of Modern Art Problems in Kiev, Academician, Professor; V. Ganotsky – at present the Head of the Department of Painting of the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts, People’s Artist of Ukraine, Professor; A. Bragin, M. Svatula – at present they are associate professors of the Department of Painting; A. Kushnirenko, N. Gnatchenko, V. Shcherbukha and others. At that time Vasiliy Yakovlevich was at the head of the Department of Drawing, he gave a friendly welcome to the new-comers and I would even say, he accepted them like a father. All of us went through a very good school of pedagogical craftsmanship: Vasiliy Yakovlevich was planning an educational load in such a way, that young assistants could work with experienced lecturers; private methods were regularly worked out in detail during Department sittings, academic statements were undergoing serious analysis on semester viewings.
The period, when V.Y. Lozovoy was at the head of the Department, is marked by considerable achievements in educational and methodological, research and creative work. Thanks to him as a founder, evening preliminary courses for working and school youth have been functioning in the Academy since 1981. When in 1989 the preparation of specialists in painting was resumed, it was V.Y. Lozovoy who worked out the schedule and curriculum in the discipline of Academies, which are actively used in educational process at present.
On the whole when V.Y. Lozovoy was the Head of the Department, a lot of events, innovations and achievements significant for the Department took place. Suffice is to mention that a tutorial by Professor S.C. Solodovnik was published in his presence, new curriculum on Academies for designers was drawn up, special attention was paid to the replenishment of methodological funds of the Department, visual aids bank was increasing etc. Vasiliy Yakovlevich invited and introduced to the Department staff an experienced anatomist, Candidate of Medical Science L.N. Kisilyova, who right during the drawing lessons was giving consultations on surface anatomy, introduced academic modeling for sculptors, was making films on anatomy. Surface anatomy was taught on a very high level.
Working with V.Y. Lozovoy for many years, I was getting to know him even more and with each year I was discovering his new features, which were enriching and generalizing his unique image. Firstly he was a real patriot of his fatherland, without "window dressing"; secondly as a man who went through the stern school of war, he was a true humanist and an outspoken resilient person. Thirdly, which is probably the most important – he was a real artist, devotedly

serving his art. Lozovoy didn’t like high-flown words, in everyday life he was very reserved and modest, but when art was concerned, he was extremely principled and persistent in achieving his aim: he was maturing an idea of forthcoming work, unwearyingly working on its realization. He was working constantly and obsessed – in his studio there always were several canvases, on which he was toiling very persistently, sometimes for many years. Still a student I got to know Lozovoy as a painter when visiting art exhibitions in Kharkov Art Museum, and also later on, when being often in his studio. I remember as in 1975 I was impressed and delighted with the painting "Soldiers” ("They were fighting for their fatherland") devoted to the 30th anniversary of the Great Victory. It was made in such a beautiful pictorial way and arranged in an interesting composition – it was extended horizontally, with pronounced direction of motion.
Since 1992 V.Y. Lozovoy has begun exhibiting abroad regularly. He took part in two joint exhibitions of Ukrainian artists in the USA: "Art from Ukraine – American perspective" in New Haven and "Kharkov to Berlin” in Germany.
Since 1993 Lozovoy visits Italy systematically, where he is creating a lot and exhibiting from time to time. On coming back Vasiliy Yakovlevich was organizing improvised creative reports: showing photos, sketches, telling a lot and interestingly, sharing impressions of what he had seen abroad. The Italian series of works by Lozovoy has opened him as a painter from an absolutely unexpected perspective. We always thought him to be a master of big thematic compositions with a plot, of large-scale canvases, but he turned out to be an excellent outdoor landscape painter, finely reproducing momentary constantly changing light and color oscillations in the southern air, glimmer of reflexes. His palette was as if "cleansed”, became luminous, really impressionistic, though later Italian critics will call the painter V.Y. Lozovoy a "vivid follower of the Russian postimpressionism".
The power of a real art lies in the fact that irrespective of a school, tendency, manner or fashion, it is taken by any social class positively, touches the heart of every person – a sophisticated or an inexperienced spectator; it, the art, has no limits. The same was in the case of our Vasiliy Yakovlevich. Having found himself in new surroundings, without betraying his moral certainties, his artistic experience, he tried to experiment analytically and compare his art with a West-European one. And it should be mentioned that he not only didn’t get lost, but on the contrary he became more and more understood and accepted by Italian viewers. As if getting his second wind, he works enthusiastically and successfully.
In 1998 Vasiliy Yakovlevich opens another exhibition in the Province Palace in Askoli Piceno, in the same year he wins the International Competition named after Lorenzo Lotto in Monte San Giusto… And after all that who will say that it is not a "new artistic perspective?
V.Y. Lozovoy passed away when he was in the very prime of his artistic life.
Last years that tied him with Italy became the most fruitful period in his artistic biography. But one may take a broader view of this unique phenomenon – creative work of the Ukrainian painter in Italy. Lozovoy’s merit consists in that he became in fact the first impressive and worthy representative of the Ukrainian national art in the West in the end of XXth century. And in contrast to the past Soviet times, the painter wasn’t declaring opposition to the existing system. He was the one he was – a real, representative of a certain school with his own view of art, with his own world-outlook and with his unique artistic manner.