Between April 2012 and March 2013, the work of two artists were displayed in the Library's Entrance Hall. The exhibition and its background were all about connections. The first connection was between the University Library and the Slavonic Studies department in general and Cambridge Ukrainian Studies in particular, without whose help the exhibition wouldn't have been possible. The next connection was between the two artists - Ulyana Gumeniuk, a British-based artist of Ukrainian heritage and Russian education, and her father, the great Ukrainian artist Feodosii Humeniuk. There are many connectons also in the artists' own work. Ulyana Gumeniuk looks at our relationship with the world we live in, and her father's work draws inspiration from the connection between the Ukrainian people and their country. The final connection was between this exhibition and 'A Soviet Design for Life', the exhibition of material from the Catherine Cooke collection, which ran in the Library's main exhibition centre from July 2012 to April 2013. The material on display there tied in with Feodosiy Humeniuk's avant-garde background and his stylised, deeply symbolic pictures, which were shown on the stairs and landing above the entrance hall, and with Ulyana Gumeniuk's striking studies of industrial architecture and micro/macro relationships displayed in the main entrance hall itself.
We are delighted that memories of the Gumeniuk/Humeniuk exhibition live on, with the artists' kind permission, through an online display. Images of Ulyana Gumeniuk's six large-scale oil paintings are available at this page, and the text accompanying her pictures can be read on this page. Images of Feodosii Humeniuk's eight coloured-pencil drawings are here (accompanied by their detailed captions), and the accompanying leaflet text is available here.