Photo Album of Those Times
Pillow with embroidered suprematism composition after the sketch by Kazimir Malevich (in the center). Oliver Sailer’s photo, 1917. Under the pillow is Olaga Rosanova’s tape. Natalia Davydova’ fragment article with ornamental pattern is on the top left. applique' work and fragment of tape after Nadezhda Udaltsova’s sketch (Attribution by O.Shatskikh) The fact that Malevich had been creating sketches for embroidery is a sensation. Decorative masterpieces made after his drafts in Natalia Davydova’s Verbivka Embroidery Shop was presented at Lemercier’s Gallery (in 1915) and Mikhaylova’s Salon of Art (in 1917).
Masterpices by Hanna Sobachko-Shostak was presented at various exhibitions in Europe. Photos from archive of National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art.
Eugenia Prybylska – researcher of Ukrainian embroidery, folk craft producing organizer in Ukraine. Artistic head of educational and showcasing workshop in Scoptsy village (renamed as Veselynivka, Kyiv oblast). It was she, who has revealed for the world such folk masters as Hanna Sobachko-Shostak and Paraska Vlasenko.
Nina Henke-Meller. Since 1914, she had been an artistic head of Natalia Davydova’s Embroidery Workshop in Verbivka village, a unique laboratory of Avant-Garde art. Her abstract compositions have given the patterns for embroidery folk masters from Verbivka, Skoptsy, and Zozove, who have created decorative panels, pieces of interior, and clothing.
Davydovs’ Country Estate in Verbivka (currently in Kamianka district of Kyiv oblast). Beginning of XX century. Photo from archive of Kamianka State Historical and Cultural Reserve.
The story about detention of the artist Natalia Davydova by Cheka in Odesa in winter, 1920 resembles a horrible surrealistic story from absurd theatre play. Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and further terrible events have left her without anything. The picture presents the sketch by AGITPROM, 1919. The building of local Cheka, the most horrible place in those days, is behind the Statue of Katherine II (wrapped in fabric with stars).
The engraving of the end of ІХХ century shows so called Prison Castle on Lustdorf Way, Odesa. It’s here, where Natalia Davydova’s younger son has died and where she has been imprisoned for most of her confinement term after artificial indictment. On the right, the two-stories building of women department is visible, which Davydova depicted in her diary “Half-year of imprisonment in 1920-1921”.