OBITUARIES
Bohdan Pevny, artist, writer and art critic, 71
KEW GARDENS, N.Y. - Bohdan Pevny, artist, arts writer and critic and co-editor of the journal Suchasnist, died on September 7 at the age of 71.
Born June 4, 1931, in Lutsk, in the Volyn region of Ukraine, the son of Petro and Zinaida née Mytz, Bohdan Pevny came from a family with a strong journalistic and arts tradition, areas of interest that he pursued as a life-long avocation.
As a war refugee and a displaced person, he attended the gymnasium in Dillingen, Germany, and in 1951 embarked on studies in journalism at the Ludwig Maximillian Universität in Munich. As a student he was keen on doing political cartoons for Ukrainian newsapapers, e.g., Ukrainskyi Samostiinyk, that came out in Munich and Ukrainets-Chas of Paris, an activity which he later continued for émigré publications in the West (Natsionalna Trybuna, America, Svoboda and the humor magazine Lys Mykyta).
Upon emigrating to the United States in 1951, Mr. Pevny studied art at the School of Visual Arts, the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York, as well as at Columbia and New York universities.
Concurrently, he continued his journalistic activity writing for Ukrainian student publications such as Horyzonty and Feniks, and as member of the editorial staff of Studentske Slovo (Student Word), a montly supplement to the Svoboda daily based in Jersey City, N.J.
An active participant in the vibrant Ukrainian émigré arts scene in New York of the post-war period, in 1955 he co-founded, and served as the first president, of the Society of Young Ukrainian Artists which worked closely with another newly created kindred grouping the New York Group of writers.
Among those who were part of the "Young Artists" were: Volodymyr Bachynsky, Irena Fedyshyn, Slava Gerulak, Zenowij Onyshkewych, Borys Pachovsky, Arcadia Petryshyn, Evhen Salamakha, Bohdan Tytla, Liubomyr Voronevych, Yaroslav Wyznyckyj and Zhenia Zhylekhivska. The group held four exhibits annually, with a first major exhibit held at Barbizon Plaza on 57th Street in New York. It is at these exhibits that Mr. Pevny's work was first exhibited.
Upon completion of his studies, he became a member of the Ukrainian Artists' Association in the United States, regularly took part in its exhibits and beginning in 1963 served in various posts of the organization.
Mr. Pevny was author of numerous articles on art which appeared in both émigré journals (Suchasnist, Terem, Krylati) as well as publications in Ukraine (Kultura i Zhyttia, Ukraina, Dzvin, Pamiatky Ukrainy, Slovo i Chas, Starozhytnosti, Nasha Vira and Volynska Trybuna) and arts editor of various publications, including the monograph "Mykola Nedilko," which came out as a publication of UVAN in 1983 and a book of ex-libris from the collection of Patriarch Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
After his first trip to Ukraine in 1970, Mr. Pevny was among the first cultural activists who established contact with his counterparts in Soviet Ukraine, at a time when such contacts elicited various responses both in the diaspora and in Ukraine.
Mr. Pevny was co-organizer of the exhibit "Contemporary Graphic Art of Ukraine" (1971), which was formed on the basis of loans from collections in the United States; he was also co-organizer, with Profs. Taras Hunczak and Roman Voronka, of the 1988 exhibit "13 Artists from Ukraine," which was shown at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and subsequently at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York.
Mr. Pevny was also responsible for the organization of an exhibit in Ukraine of the graphic works of Jacques Hnizdovsky (1915-1985), held at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Kyiv and at the National Museum in Lviv in 1991. That same year he served as curator and author of the catalogue for a retrospective exhibit of the works of the sculptor Mykhailo Chereshnovsky (1911-1994) held at The Ukrainian Museum in New York.
Since 1984 Mr. Pevny had served as arts editor, and since July 1986 as editor, with literary critic and former dissident and minister of culture of Ukraine, Ivan Dzyuba, of Suchasnist. The journal, a major forum for writers and artists, as well as cultural and political figures, with a special focus on political and social developments and intellectual life in Ukraine, had been published since 1961 in the West and since 1992 has been coming out in Kyiv.
Mr. Pevny was a full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States, a member of the Artists' and Writers' unions of Ukraine, and a member of the Association of Journalists of Ukraine.
Funeral services were held at St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in New York on September 12, followed by interment at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, N.J.
Mr. Pevny is survived by his wife, Khrystyna née Kvasnytsia; daughters, Olenka and Laryssa; and son, Taras, with his wife, Charlotte.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 3, 2002, No. 44, Vol. LXX
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