Mykhailo Vrubel

March 17, 1856 — April 14, 1910

Painter

One of the most original painters of the turn of the 20th century. He lived in Kyiv in 1884–1889, painting St Cyril’s Church and working on sketches for St Volodymyr’s Cathedral.

How beautiful Kyiv is, after all! What a pity I don’t live here. I love Kyiv!

— Mykhailo Vrubel, quoted in the guide “Kyiv Addresses of Mykhailo Vrubel” (Kyiv Art Gallery, 2020)

Biography

Mykhailo (Mikhail) Vrubel came to Kyiv in May 1884, still a student of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. He was invited by Professor Adrian Prakhov, who was leading the restoration of the 12th-century St Cyril’s Church. Kyiv became the starting point of the 28-year-old artist’s own path: he lived here for five years, until mid-1889, and later remembered this time as one of the happiest in his life.

At first Vrubel lodged in the attic of the house at 46 Volodymyrska Street, then home to Mykola Murashko’s Kyiv Drawing School (the building has not survived). Together with Mykola Pymonenko and the school’s students he restored the medieval murals of St Cyril’s, and where the frescoes had been lost he painted his own compositions: the Archangel Gabriel on the altar pillar, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Lamentation and the monumental Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles (1885) on the vault of the choir gallery. He painted four icons for the marble iconostasis on zinc panels in Venice, where he went in autumn 1885 to study Byzantine mosaics.

In 1886 he painted one of his finest easel works in Kyiv, “Girl Against a Persian Carpet”. That December he moved into a house at 16 Tryokhsviatytelska Street (today 14 Desiatynna Street) near St Andrew’s Church, where he had a studio with a balcony overlooking the Dnipro. A memorial plaque by Ivan Kavaleridze (1962) now marks the house.

For St Volodymyr’s Cathedral Vrubel made sketches of the Resurrection and the Lamentation in 1887, but the building commission rejected them as too daring for church canon. In the end, in 1889 he painted only the ornaments of the side altars, and his name never appeared on the cathedral’s plaque listing the artists. That same spring he decorated ceilings in the mansion of the collectors Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko at 15 Tereshchenkivska Street — today the Khanenko Museum of Arts.

After moving to Moscow, Vrubel returned to Kyiv several times with his wife, the singer Nadiya Zabila. In 1903 their two-year-old son Savva died suddenly here and was buried at Baikove Cemetery; after that the artist never came back.

His Kyiv works are kept at the Kyiv Art Gallery national museum (9 Tereshchenkivska Street), and his murals can still be seen in St Cyril’s Church. Since 1939 a street, Vrubelivskyi Descent, has borne his name.

Life timeline

1884 Arrival in Kyiv Invited by Adrian Prakhov to restore St Cyril’s Church.
1885 Descent of the Holy Spirit Paints the composition in the choir gallery and goes to Venice to work on the icons.
1886 Girl Against a Persian Carpet Paints one of his best Kyiv pictures; in December settles at 14 Desiatynna St.
1887 Sketches for St Volodymyr’s The Resurrection and Lamentation are rejected by the building commission.
1889 Ornaments and ceilings Paints ornaments in the cathedral and ceilings in the Khanenko mansion, then leaves Kyiv.
1903 A Kyiv tragedy His son Savva dies and is buried at Baikove Cemetery.
1910 Death Dies in St Petersburg; in May Kyiv holds an exhibition of his watercolours and drawings.
1962 Memorial plaque A plaque by Ivan Kavaleridze is unveiled at 14 Desiatynna St.

Key achievements

Murals of St Cyril’s New compositions and icons among 12th-century frescoes.
St Volodymyr’s sketches Daring versions of the Resurrection and Lamentation, ahead of their time.
Khanenko mansion interiors A frieze and ceiling still visible in the museum today.
The Kyiv period Here the artist found the style that opened the “Vrubel era”.

Kyiv in their life

St Cyril’s Church (12 Oleny Telihy St) — murals of 1884–1885, including the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and the iconostasis icons.
46 Volodymyrska St — site of Murashko’s Drawing School, where Vrubel lived in 1884 (not preserved).
14 Desiatynna St — his studio and home from December 1886; memorial plaque of 1962.
St Volodymyr’s Cathedral (20 Taras Shevchenko Blvd) — ornaments of the side altars, 1889.
Khanenko mansion (15 Tereshchenkivska St) — ceiling paintings of 1889, now the Khanenko Museum.
40 Khreshchatyk — the Kane rooming house, his home from autumn 1888 to August 1889.
Kyiv Art Gallery (9 Tereshchenkivska St) — his Kyiv works.