The Ivano-Frankivs'k Art Museum

Ivano-Frankivs’k is a wonderful city remarkable for a great place, where everyone can feel beauty of art and get to know different national and cultural art traditions. Sheptyts’kogo Square is a place, where one of the most valuable places of interest in baroque style is located – Virgin Mary College Church built by an architect Krassini.

The Ivano-Frankivs’k Art Museum situated in this church is open to the public. In former times this place used to be a burial vault for the Potots’kyi Family, the earls. In 1669 this church became a collegiate organ with educational institution – branch of the Krakow Academy.

At the present day the Ivano-Frankivs’k Art Museum is a treasure house of visual and folk arts of Prykarpattia region. Various exhibits of the museum are of a great value, including a great number of icon paintings of Galychyna region, sculptures in baroque style, ancient books published in L’viv and Pochaiv, valuable items of Ukrainian folk art, as well as canvas of Polish, Italian, German and Austrian artists.

Valuable exposition “Sacral Art of Galychyna region C15th-20th” with a collection of unique icon paintings and carvings of Galychyna of the 18th-20th centuries is a real gem of the museum. Among them you can see real masterpieces of West Ukrainian artists: Olena Kul’chyts’ka, Yaroslav Pstrak, Ivan Trush, Osyp Sorokhteya, Oleksa Novakivs’kyi, Yulian Dan’kevych. You’ll be impressed with the exhibition of sculptures in baroque style performed by Ioann-Georg Pinsel’, Tomas Gudder, Dionis Stanetti.

Ukrainian artists, lead historians and art critics have made the exposition of sacral masterpieces. They covered much ground throughout Ukraine searching for valuable rare canvas and works of folk art. At the period from 1983 to 1987 workers of the Ivano-Frankivs’k Art Museum searched for precious masterpieces in ruins of churches located in villages Bolohov, Zaluzhzhia and Zavadky. Many of these masterpieces were found in the basements of Ivano-Frankivs’k Cathedral. Sculptures of St Petro and St Pavlo, sculptures of angels in baroque style were found in the church situated in the city of Galych. The workers of the museum have found decorative sanctuary carvings of Kolegiata in Shevchenkove village, in St Panteleimon Church. Sculptures of Ioann-Georg Pinsel’ and sculptural complex of sanctuary from the Bernardine Monastery were carried in 1987-1988 from the villages Goroden’ka and Gvizdets' to the museum.

To keep valuable masterpieces, the workers of the museum have sent them to restoration studios in L’viv and Kyiv: the National Research Restoration Centre L’viv branch and the Kyiv National Art Institute, today known as the National Academy of Art and Architecture in Kyiv.

We should note the museum was gifted with a beautiful collection of modern foreign graphic at the international exhibition “Impresa”. You are well advised to visit the Ivano-Frankivs’k Art Museum and to see its valuable exhibits.