It is almost impossible to write about Liza Kremnytska without mentioning Pavlo Bedzir—especially when speaking of Liza’s black-and-white graphics, which remain largely unknown to the wider circle of admirers of her work. Pavlo—her lawful husband (they were married in 1952) and a teacher-experimenter—used to say among friends, “My Liza,” reminiscent of the Mona Lisa.
The 1950s were marked by many changes—both in the Soviet empire and in the world at large. The Second World War had ended, the second dictator had died—setting the stage for Khrushchev’s thaw in the USSR. A fresh wind of change was in the air: an exhibition of American contemporary art in Moscow, followed by the French bringing their avant-garde to the Manege. As the main organizer, Liza Kremnytska-Bedzir, together with Pavlo and their friends, could not ignore such significant events.
Connections were being established with like-minded people across the Soviet Union: exchanging addresses and phone numbers, corresponding, and most importantly—engaging in discussions about what they had seen and experienced, about real art. In Uzhhorod, a spot emerged—the “Verkhovyna” restaurant—where Liza and Pavlo, over a glass of wine, with notebooks and a pile of colored markers (a novelty from abroad), skillfully recorded their impressions.
Fortunately, Liza’s financial situation also improved, thanks to her work at the Artists’ Fund (Khudfond), in her field (decorative painting)—varied work, but always beloved.
It was around this blissful time that art historian Dmytro Horbachov visited Uzhhorod. In his memoirs about Liza, he wrote:
“Kremnytska is an artist of Uzhhorod. In the 1940s–60s, this city was a stronghold of the European spirit for Ukraine. <…> Thus, the emergence of Kremnytska—an artist Europeanized to the bone—can be truly understood only in Uzhhorod. In the flow of cultural energy that poured toward tortured Kyiv, Kremnytska’s current stood out. She was radically inclined and professed abstractionism—at a time when, at Khrushchev’s behest, everyone ‘from toddlers to the elderly’ had to fight against it.”
And further: “There can never be too much beauty… but there is also the concept of ‘safety margin.’ Kremnytska had a great safety margin, her ‘string’ still ‘resonates in the mist,’ — to use Gogol’s language.”
—Pavlo Kovach,
from the foreword to the catalogue: Yelyzaveta Lyudvyhivna Kremnytska: Painting. Graphics. 1925–1978 / ed. and comp. by O. Pepeta. — Kyiv, 2006.
The black-and-white graphics presented at the exhibition resonate with the dark era that followed Khrushchev’s thaw. While working on these sheets, Kremnytska likely recalled eyewitness accounts of NKVD reprisals against avant-garde artists—particularly the execution of Vera Yermolaeva—and reflected on the difficult fates of the artistic legacies of Olga Rozanova, Alexandra Exter, and other women artists.
