Moroz painting is rediscovered in Florida (06/21/98)

Moroz painting is rediscovered in Florida

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - A painting by the renowned Ukrainian artist Mychajlo Moroz (1904-1992) was recently rediscovered when its present owner concluded her comprehensive search for further information on the artist in question.

The painting has been in the possession of the family of its present owner, Angie McNamar of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., since the early 1940s. The painting was purchased in Ukraine by Mrs. McNamar's father, Wolfgang Hecht, and given to his wife as a Christmas present in 1942. It was brought to the U.S. from Germany by the Hechts in 1976.

The painting, which is signed on the lower right-hand corner, is a portrait of a Hutsul (Dmytro Lyndiuk). It was painted in the Carpathian Mountain village of Kosmach in 1932.

Mrs. McNamar was aided in her search to further identify the artist by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which provided more information regarding Moroz.

Mychajlo Moroz was born in the village of Plikhiv, Berezhany county, western Ukraine in 1904. He studied at the Novakivsky Art School in Lviv, and subsequently in Paris. A post-war refugee in Germany, he emigrated to New York in 1949.

A prolific painter, Moroz's oeuvre numbers over 3,000 works - portraits, landscapes and genre paintings - in a style that evolved from a calm impressionism to expressionism. Moroz died in Staten Island, N.Y., in 1992 at the age of 88. A monograph of Moroz's work, compiled by his widow, Irene Moroz, was published by the Art Museum of LaSalle University in Philadelphia in 1995.