From February 20, ZAG opens a new perspective — " HE: Taras Shevchenko. Artist"
Zenyk Art Gallery presents a new conceptual exhibition «HE: Taras Shevchenko. Artist», together with The National Taras Shevchenko Museum, which brings together 58 paintings and graphic works from different periods of his life.
The exhibition project reveals Shevchenko not only as a national classic, but as a holistic artist of European scale — academician of etching, innovator of social graphics, experimenter of compositional and figurative solutions, whose visual language resonates with contemporary artistic practices.
The exhibition is built on the principle of «image and motif» and covers key thematic blocks:
Self-portraits. This is a way to understand one's own personality, a form of internal dialogue, to a certain extent — an act of freedom in conditions of lack of freedom.
Picturesque Ukraine. Shevchenko conceived the series during a trip to Ukraine (1843). The exhibition presents 15 works: watercolors, drawings and etchings.
The Prodigal Son. A sepia series of eight subjects about human dignity, which reads biblical metaphor, social criticism, psychologism and empathy.
Exile. Despite the threat of punishment — creates in secret. He paints the Kyrgyz steppes, expeditions, depicts indigenous people, shows the life of soldiers. His "Kazakh cycle" — are some of the most powerful social paintings of the 19th century. Moreover, Shevchenko created a new type of realism — the realism of a witness, not an observer.
Shevchenko and the world. Shevchenko's key visual images that resonate in the 21st century in the world — are freedom, not as a slogan, but a strategy, it is dignity that no one has the right to take away, it is resistance to violence as manifestos of anti-colonialism, Ukraine — subject, not victim.
Shevchenko and the Academy. In 1838, after his redemption from serfdom, Shevchenko became a free student, and later a student of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He accepted the school, but did not accept the ideology of imperial culture.
Shevchenko's environment. It is also important to show the people who influenced the formation of Shevchenko not just as an artist-poet, but as a political theorist in visual and poetic form.
SHE. Woman, mother, beloved, Ukraine. Shevchenko created over thirty female portraits in various techniques. He never painted random women. The artist had to have understanding and awe for the individual.
«How to see and read Shevchenko today? Not as a «classic», but as an interlocutor, to understand at first glance his emotional, social and philosophical levels — his pain and tenderness, serfdom and disenfranchisement, responsibility and freedom. In Ukrainian culture, Shevchenko is not an icon, but a criterion: is there honesty in words, is there respect for a person, is there an understanding that freedom — not a gift, but an effort?», - Khrystina Beregovska,curator of the exhibition, director of ZAG, doctor of art history.
The exhibition «HE: Taras Shevchenko. Artist» is open from February 20 to June 20, 2026 at Zenyk Art Gallery.
All presented works belong to the collection of the National Taras Shevchenko Museum.
The works are insured by the insurance company UNIQA Ukraine.