Description of the attraction
The Art Museum, which has national status, is located in the very center of Kiev. The building in which the museum is located was erected at the end of the 19th century by architects G. Boytsov and V. Gorodetsky, and was originally intended to house the museum. The museum itself was opened in 1899 with the assistance of the historian N. Bilyashevsky and art critics F. Ernst and D. Shcherbakovsky.
The purpose of the museum was to collect professional Ukrainian fine arts. However, when collecting the collection, the creators of the museum were guided not only by the principle of the ethnicity of the painters, they were interested in all the masters who were born and worked on the territory of Ukraine, including those who for some reason were forced to leave their homeland and even foreigners who lived here and made significant contribution to Ukrainian art. Therefore, the search for exhibits was carried out not only in Ukraine, but also far beyond its borders. As a result, paintings by Shevchenko, Tropinin, Repin, Borovikovsky, Pimonenko, Vrubel, Narbut, Ge, Krichevsky, Murashko and others appeared in the Art Museum. Also, the collection of the museum includes medieval icons, portraits of religious enlighteners and leaders of the Cossacks.
The museum worked actively until the 30s, when its development, in connection with the unfolding of Stalinist repressions, was actually suspended. A significant part of the valuable exhibits were hidden in special storage facilities. Only in the early 90s did the museum begin to revive again, gradually reaching the world level. Over the past twenty years, the museum's exhibits have been repeatedly exhibited in museums in Canada, the USA, France and other foreign countries, invariably arousing the interest of the local public. Also, active work is still ongoing to replenish museum funds.
