Fedir Krychevsky

Fedir Krychevsky
Self portrait, 1923-24
Born	(1879-05-22)May 22, 1879 Lebedyn, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine)
Died	July 30, 1947(1947-07-30) Irpin, Kiev Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine)
Occupation	Painter

Fedir Krychevsky (Ukrainian: Федір Кричевський; May 22, 1879 in Lebedyn, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire – July 30, 1947 in Irpin, in Kiev Oblast, in the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union) was an influential Ukrainian early modernist painter. He was the brother of graphic designer Vasyl Krychevsky.

Krychevsky was born in Lebedyn to the family of a Jewish country doctor who converted to Orthodox Christianity and married a Ukrainian woman. He graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1901 and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1910. He traveled in Western Europe for a year, and studied briefly with Gustav Klimt in Vienna. He moved to Kiev, where he served as professor and director at the Kiev Art School from 1914–18.

In 1917, he was one of the founders and a rector (from 1920–22) of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts. When the academy was abolished, he worked as a professor at the Kiev State Art Institute, eventually becoming its rector. He remained in Kiev at the onset of the Second World War, and kept his position at the Institute, trying to save it in difficult conditions during the German occupation of Kiev. He served as the chairman of the Union of Ukrainian Artists that tried to improve the conditions of artists during the occupation. He was extremely popular among the artist-colleagues, faculty at the institute and the students, and no one betrayed his Jewish origins to the German authorities, saving him from the Babi Yar massacre.