Ukrainian oil painting · Kyiv, 1990s
Leonid Titulenko
Seventeen oils on canvas, brought from Kyiv to Nashville. In the wild 1990s, buying these paintings supported Leonid and his friends in Ukraine during difficult times.
See the works
Oil on canvas · 27 × 39 in · $8,000
Collection of the Batsuk Family Trust
The painter
Born into a family of artists
Leonid Titulenko was born in Kyiv in 1966. His mother and father both belonged to the Union of Soviet Artists, a very selective body, and are known internationally for wood carving and mosaics.
He drew from early childhood. His parents sent him to the State School of Art, where he studied for eleven years, and then to the Kyiv College of Art, graduating with an artist-teaching degree. He went on to study part-time at the Kyiv Academy of Arts.
Most of his paintings hang in private collections in France, England, Israel and the United States. One painting is held in the White House archives, purchased by Barbara Bush.
The wider family story is told in The Dynasty of Artists Titulenko, a 2014 documentary by Anastasiya Sytnikova made as a university project. It follows Vladimir Titulenko, a painter in Kyiv, and his eldest son Leonid, who by then lived in New Jersey, and sets their two approaches to technique side by side. The film reaches further back too: a great-grandfather who was a master of woodcraft and sculpture, a great-grandmother who sewed professionally, and a grandmother who danced. Two of Vladimir's sons became artists. Watch the film on YouTube or read the project blog.
- 1966born, Kyiv
- 11 yearsState School of Art
- 4 countriesprivate collections
Now showing
The works
Price list
Catalogue
All seventeen works. Sizes in inches. Photographed works open in the viewer.
| No. | Title | Size | Price |
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Provenance
Bought in Kyiv, 1993
The paintings were bought through a Kyiv artists' cooperative in June 1993. Each salon receipt carries the cooperative's stamp, the title, the medium (oil on canvas), the size and the artist's signed agreement.
The works left Ukraine the same month under a customs declaration. Original receipts and the declaration stay with the collection, along with a set of seventeen slide transparencies, LD.1 to LD.17.
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Receipts of purchase
Kyiv, June 1993
Salon receipts from the cooperative “Oformitel” in Kyiv, issued to the buyer and signed by the artist and the salon manager. Tap a receipt to read it full size.