Ukrainian center of national culture — Ivan Gonchar museum

Ukrainian center of national culture — Ivan Gonchar museum

Museum collection has over 15 000 exhibits. It includes artworks, articles of art and ethnographic value. Exhibition presents painting (folk pictures, icon collection, professional paintings, graphics), folk fabrics (towels, embroideries, outerwear, carpets), ceramics (basins, pots, bowls, toys), folk musical instruments (cobzas, banduras, duclimers, lyras), memorial department (creative heritage of the museum founder painter and sculpture Ivan Gonchar).

Ivan Gonchar — public figure, painter and sculpture started his collection at the end of 50-th. Travelling Ukraine during 40 years he found and preserved folk art articles. Ivan Gonchar studied folk art of Kievshina, Zhitomirshina, Poltavshina, Donbass, Podillje, Podnistrovje, Galychina, Bukovina and Zakarpatje.

As the result of tremendous effort appeared unique folk art collection, which layed a basis for the of the private Ivan Gonchar collection. At the time when state museums were oriented exclusively on «soviet art» Ivan Gonchar museum presented traditional Ukrainian culture, in particular, folk art without ideological restrictions and not-censored. Collection became public museum well known in Ukraine and abroad. Thousands of people visited it and museum becames one of the centers of the movement of sixties.

Ivan Gonchar died in 1993 but his dream about museum realized. September same year was founded State Ivan Gonchar museum. Kiev administration provided museum premises in the building, which is an architectural monument of XVIII century. In 1999 under the Presidential order based on State Ivan Gonchar museum was organized Ukrainian Center of the folk culture.