Tetyana Yablonska and Yuri Ilyenko

Tetyana Yablonska (1917 – 2005) became a member of the Academy of Art of the USSR in 1975. She was an outstanding Ukrainian artist, Hero of Ukraine (2003). Her pictures were devoted to the work and life of Ukrainian people.

Yablonska was awarded the honorary title "Peoples' Artists of the USSR" in 1982, "Artist of Year" (UNESCO) in 1997, "Woman of Year" in 2000. She was the winner of the USSR State Prize (1949, 1951, 1979), and winner of the Shevchenko state prize of Ukraine (1998).

In 1944, she had become a member of the Kiev State Institute of Art. In 1965 she continued her practise as an art researcher and became the Chief specialist of the interior sector of the Kyiv Zonal Research Institute of Experimental Design. Yablonska was also elected as a member of parliament of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic.

In her practice, Tetyana Yablonska researched such topics as the role of nature in human life, the beauty of human routine, the global issue of birth and death, Ukrainian traditions and national consciousness, delivering a subtlety of plastic and color rhythms.

As an academician, a professor and an artist, Tetyana Yablonska has a huge impact on the next generations - a lot of modern Ukrainian academicians and artists are her students and art inheritors: Mikhail Turovsky, Valentina Vyrodova-Gautier, Kulyk Ivan and others.

Yuri Illienko (1936 – 2010) became a member of the Academy
of Arts of Ukraine in 1996. He was one of Ukraine's most influential filmmakers, who directed twelve films between 1965 and 2002. His films represented Ukraine and what was happening to it.

Yuriy Ilyenko's 1983 film Lisova pisnia. Mavka won the FIPRESCI Prize. In 1987 Illienko received the title of People's Artist of Ukraine. In 1991 and 1992 Illienko was Chairman of the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation. In 1991 he was awarded the Shevchenko Prize.

Yuri Ilyenko was the main cinematography of the film "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Sergei Parajanov. In 1966 New York Film Festival described the film as an "avant-garde, extravagant" that combined folk-songs and atonal music with fantastic camera work.
"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" is considered to be the most internationally heralded Ukrainian film in history, and a classic of Ukrainian magical realist cinema.

Selected films:● Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, cinematographer (1965)● Well for the Thirsty, director (1965)● The Eve of Ivan Kupala, director (1968)● The White Bird Marked with Black, director (1970)● Swan Lake "The Zone", director (1990)● A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa, director, actor (2002)