Fir Trees

Mykhailo Hordiiovych Derehus was a Soviet Ukrainian painter and graphic artist, teacher, and cultural figure. He was a People's Artist of the USSR (1963), laureate of the T. Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR (1965, 1969), a corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and an academician and professor of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine. Born on November 22 (December 5), 1904 in the village of Vesele (now Kharkiv district of Kharkiv region), he studied from 1923 to 1930 at the Kharkiv Art Institute under M. Sharonov, S. Prokhorov, O. Kokel, and M. Burachek. In 1932-1941 and 1944-1950, he taught at the Kharkiv Art Institute. Derehus entered the history of Soviet and Ukrainian art as an illustrator of classical Ukrainian literature and Soviet historical novels, first of all as an illustrator of M. Gogol, T. Shevchenko, L. Ukrainka, M. Vovchok, and Ukrainian folk dumas and historical songs. He created many interesting illustrations for N. Rybak's historical novel "Pereyaslavska Rada". A talented painter, Derehus created complex multi-figure compositions on his canvases and worked in the field of portrait, landscape and everyday genre. He was a participant in more than one hundred and twenty art exhibitions, including international ones. The artist's works are kept in museums of Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, and in private collections of Ukraine and abroad. He died on July 31, 1997 in Kyiv.