Kornylo Ustyianovych
1839–1903 · Ukrainian painter, writer and folklorist
Kornylo Ustyianovych (Vovkiv, 1839 — Dovhe, 1903) was a Ukrainian painter who also worked as a writer and folklorist. His paintings are largely in the Academic style, and he is remembered for combining religious painting and portraiture with a strong commitment to Ukrainian culture in Galicia.
He studied in Buchach and Lviv before attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1858 to 1863, where he studied under the Polish painter Artur Grottger. There he was influenced by the work of Józef Bohdan Zaleski, and his political outlook shifted from Pan-Slavism to Ukrainian patriotism. After settling in Kyiv after 1872, he wrote poems on folklore themes and articles on the art of Galicia.
He produced icons and murals for more than fifty churches and painted about forty portraits. He also made political cartoons for the satirical magazine The Mirror, which Ivan Franko praised. He died in 1903 while painting an iconostasis in a small village, where he was buried. Most of his work is held by the Lviv National Art Gallery, and a monument near his birthplace commemorates him.