Artists of the Collection
Vitalij Ivanovič Lyba
* 1949, Novoukrainka
A Ukrainian academic painter, born in Novoukrainka in central Ukraine (22 April 1949), whose entire creative life is bound to Uzhhorod on the westernmost edge of the country. From 1964 to 1969 he studied at the Secondary School of Applied and Decorative Art, from 1971 he devoted himself to monumental art — creating dozens of large mosaics in architecture — and since 1989 he has been a freelance artist. His work moves between townscapes, landscape painting and sacred themes; among his constant motifs are the wooden churches familiar from north-eastern Slovakia and from Transcarpathia.
The spiritual dimension of his painting is confirmed by an extraordinary episode: the picture Holy Trinity was chosen as the official gift that the President of the Slovak Republic Rudolf Schuster presented to Pope John Paul II during his visit to the Vatican. Another of his canvases, Christ and Skyscrapers, travelled as a gift to US President George Bush. His works are held in private collections in Ukraine, Canada, Germany, the USA, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
