Recently, at the initiative of Svitlana Onyshchuk, the head of the Ivano-Frankivsk regional military administration, the tenth charity auction in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was held. Approximately fifty lots were presented for participation, which not only had material value but also unique socio-cultural significance. The auction was personally supported by His Beatitude Epiphany, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The auction was supported by Bohdan Hubal, a professor at the Department of Design and Art Theory, Honoured Artist of Ukraine, with his composition “Nativity Scene.” It was purchased for 150,000 hryvnias by a bidder who did not wish to disclose his name.
Bogdan Ivanovich Hubal is an artist and teacher whose name is known far beyond our country. The author’s works are presented in the collections of 24 national and state museums of Ukraine and the Taras Shevchenko Museum in Toronto (Canada), purchased for private collections in Austria, England, Bulgaria, Israel, Canada, Germany, the USA, France, South Korea, Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Finland, and Australia.
The work “Nativity Scene”, which was sold at the 10th Anniversary Auction, was created as a sketch for the tapestry of the same name back in the USSR, in 1989. To achieve this, the author conducted research in remote Carpathian villages, seeking the living seeds of national tradition. At that time, the thematisation of religious holidays and folk folklore processions was not covered in professional art, as it was under an unofficial ban by the authorities.
The tapestry was exhibited at the artist’s personal exhibition at the Lviv Museum of Ethnography and Folk Crafts (1989) and was purchased by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.
The auction event once again draws attention to the issues surrounding the value of deep-rooted national culture. The auction raised 12 million 280 thousand hryvnias, which will be directed to assist the 102nd Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 50th Regiment named after Colonel Semyon Vysochan.
