Ihor Dychenko (1956-2015) was a Ukrainian collector, art historian, artist, researcher of the Ukrainian avant-garde, founder of the International Charitable Foundation bearing his name.

Ihor Dyachenko was born in 1946 in Kyiv. He graduated from the Kyiv State Art Institute. He worked at the Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine, taught art history at the Kyiv Choreographic School, and was a senior research fellow at the Museum of the History of Kyiv.

Dyachenko began collecting his unique collection, which comprises about 8000 items, from a young age. During Soviet times, Ihor Dyachenko’s collection ranked among the top ten in the USSR, and the collector himself frequently served as a consultant for leading world auctions specializing in Ukrainian avant-garde art. Various parts of Dyachenko’s collection have been exhibited since the mid-1980s in the USA, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Russia, Canada, Japan, Germany, Hungary, and elsewhere.

Ihor Dyachenko has written numerous articles about Ukrainian artists of the avant-garde era and the mid-20th century.

Dyachenko is also known for categorically refusing to sell any items from his collection. In the last few years before his death, he kept it in the Kyiv museum complex “Mystetskyi Arsenal,” where parts of the collection were occasionally exhibited.