REVISITING THE PAST: David Burliuk, father of Ukrainian Futurism in America (07/22/01)

REVISITING THE PAST: David Burliuk, father of Ukrainian Futurism in America

by Alexander Capitonenko

The an avant-garde painter and poet David Burliuk, widely known as one of the founders of Russian futurism, traces his roots to a Kozak family. He was born in the Sumy region of Ukraine, studied in Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, and worked in Ukraine, Russia, Japan and the United States. His paintings and archives today are kept in the art collection at Syracuse University.

Born on July 22, 1882, in Semyrotivka near the village of Riabushky (now Lebedyn District, Sumy Oblast) in Ukraine, Burliuk attended gymnasia in the cities of Sumy, Tambov and Tver. Between 1898 and 1902 he studied in the art schools of Kazan and Odesa,

Later he and his younger brother, Volodymyr, left their homeland for a year of study with Anton Azbe in Munich, and six months with Eugene Cormon in Paris. Returning to Ukraine in 1905, Burliuk intermittently continued his formal training at the Odesa Art School and the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture until 1913.

A prominent figure in Ukrainian and Russian avant-garde, he exhibited in 1907-1909 with the Wreath and Link groups.

Between 1910 and 1918 he was active in the Jack of Diamonds movement, helping stage numerous public demonstrations whose ribaldry challenged that of the spectacles of the Dadaists and Italian futurists.

Invited by Wassily Kandinsky to exhibit with Der Blaue Reiter," group, he contributed an essay "Die Wilden Ruslands" to their "Almanac" in 1912.

Burliuk also avidly defended and wrote futurist poetry, which stressed sound over sense. In 1911 in Moscow he met Volodymyr Mayakovsky, with whom he organized lectures and manifestos, including "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste" (1912). With his colleagues he toured Ukraine and southern Russia in winter of 1913-1914 to promote modern art and poetry.

During the years of the Russian revolution, Burliuk moved eastward: he lived in the Urals, traveled across Siberia and the Far East.

In 1919 he gathered his family in Vladivostok, then left for Japan aboard a Japanese warship. Burliuk lived on the Japanese Islands for only two years, from 1920 to 1922, and during that stay spent the winter of 1920-1921 in the Bonin Archipelago. Nevertheless, he managed to organize exhibitions there.

Arriving in New York in September 1922, Burliuk soon caused a sensation in the city's art world because of his exotic vests and earrings.

Burliuk published many pamphlets on art, became an American citizen in 1930, and from 1923 to 1940 made his living as a proofreader and art editor for the New York daily paper Russkii Golos.

He exhibited annually at the ACA Gallery in New York City and devoted himself fully to painting.

From 1937 to 1966 Burliuk and his wife, Marussia, published Color & Rhyme, a periodical primarily concerned with charting Burliuk's activities.

Inspired by periodic trips to California, Mexico, Florida, Europe, and the Soviet Union, Burliuk continued to paint prolifically until his death in Southhampton Hospital on Long Island, N.Y., on January 15,1967.

There is no trace of the late Burliuk at Hampton Bays on Long Island. According to the prominent futurist's will, his ashes were dispersed over the Atlantic. But there is a Memorial museum and house at Hampton Bays, which now belongs to Burliuk's granddaughter, Mary Holt.

Many paintings by Burliuk are dispersed all over the world; they can be seen in the most prestigious museums, galleries and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Parrish Museum, the Grosvenor Art Gallery and the Yale University Art Gallery.

According to available data, 63 works by Burliuk and his archive are also kept in the Syracuse University Art Collection and its research library.

In 1909 Burliuk painted a portrait of his future wife, Marussia, on a background of flowers and rocks on the Crimean coast. Many times thereafter he would set the image of his wife to canvass. Without question two dreams possessed his heart all his life: the face of his wife and the portrait of his homeland - first Ukraine and then his adopted country, the United States.

Vassiliy Kamenskiy, a poet, painter, and fellow futurist, once said of the artist: "The name of David Burliuk was, and always is, an international name. Like the sun in the heavens." That's why the 120th anniversary of the birthday of the "Father of Ukrainian Futurism" will be marked internationally in July 2002.

Alexander Kapitonenko is a researcher of the life and creative legacy of David Burliuk. He is also a founder and co-chairman of the David Burliuk Foundation based in Symferopol, Ukraine. The foundation is preparing to mark the 120th anniversary of David Burliuk's birth in July 2002 and is gathering materials in American, Russian, Japanese, German, Cuban, British and French museums and private collections for a monograph on the artist. The foundation's mailing address is: 1 Rosa Luxemburg St., P.O. Box 1471, Symferopol, 9500; Ukraine; e-mail, dbf@crimea.com.

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