NIKIFOR

This publication is a catalogue of the NIKIFOR exhibition at the Ukrainian Museum in New York (January 19 to April 15, 2023). It includes a foreword by the Director of the Museum, Peter Doroshenko, essays by theexhibition curator, Prof. Myroslava Mudrak, a biography of the artist, images of the works on exhibit, and a list of the 149 Nikifor works in the Museum’s collection.

All of Nikifor’s works are printed in color.

Nikifor Epiphanius Drowniak (1895–1968) was born to a Lemko mother in Krynica (now Poland). Born with a hearing and speech impediment and orphaned during World War I, Nikifor was unable to communicate with the people around him. He was initially treated like a misfit and ridiculed by the people of his hometown. For most of his life, he found himself isolated both physically and emotionally. Art became an outlet, a focus for his life. The topics of Nikifor’s art include self-portraits and panoramas of Krynica, with its spas and Orthodox and Catholic churches. Throughout his vast body of drawings, Nikifor interweaves classic landscapes and memories. Each drawing offers a kaleidoscope of both the familiar and the unfamiliar.