Portrait of H. Kulbaba, Builder of the “3600” Mill

Valentyn Kostiantynovych Konstantynov was a Ukrainian painter and sculptor. He was born on February 23, 1923 in the village of Yalta (now Donetsk region, Ukraine). He took part in World War II and was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Great Patriotic War, 1st degree, and medals. He graduated from the Kharkiv State Art School in 1951, where his teachers in the specialty were Mykola Slipchenko, Lev Fitilov, and Petro Shyhymaha. He lived in the city of Mariupol. Konstantynov worked in the field of easel painting and monumental and decorative art, creating portraits, thematic paintings, landscapes, bas-reliefs, and monuments. He was a member of the National Union of Ukrainian Artists from 1965 and a member of the board of the Union of Ukrainian Artists (1965-1978). A participant in city, regional, all-Ukrainian, all-Union, and foreign exhibitions, he was the laureate of the republic landscape exhibition "Kuindzhi Memorial" in 1973. His main works include the paintings "A. Brandt" (1959), "Mothers" (1965), "A. Starovoitov" (1973), the mosaic "Metallurgists" (1973, Mariupol railway station) produced in collaboration with L.M. Kuzminkov, a monument to the poet G. Kostoprav (1992, village of Malyi Yanisol, Volodarsky district, Donetsk region), the architectural and sculptural composition "Warrior-Liberator" (2001, Mariupol), and others. He died in Mariupol on December 4, 2012. His works are in museums and private collections in Ukraine, England, the Netherlands, and Greece.