Portrait by Tanya Kornienko · click to enlarge
Alla Horska
monumentalist, painter, dissident · 1929–1970
Alla is an outstanding Ukrainian avant-garde artist, but her works are at the same time filled with features of folk art, mainly through their bright colours. She was active in social life and a member of the creative youth club “Suchasnyk,” whose members worked to restore Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
They found the burial places of thousands of victims of Stalinist repression, which they reported to the Kyiv authorities — who responded only with new repression. Alla was killed under mysterious circumstances, and her name and work were banned for decades. In 2010 her son found declassified documents showing she had been killed by the authorities.