Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery () is the largest art museum in Ukraine, with over 62,000 artworks in its collection, including works of Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, French, German, Dutch and Flemish, Spanish, Austrian and other European artists. The artwork is currently divided into three major collections, housed in the historic Lozynsky and Potocki Palaces, while the Gallery additionally has the charge of fifteen small museums and historical buildings in or close to Lviv.
The decision to found a municipal gallery of art was made in 1897, with the Lviv Art Gallery first formally opened in 1907. The museum experienced grave difficulties during the early Soviet era and WWII, as the Soviets regarded the existence of anything like a nationally-oriented museum collection with antipathy and distrust. In a notorious episode, the museum's wartime director, Ivan Ivanets, was kidnapped by SMERSH and executed in Russian territory in 1946.
During the 1960s and 1990s, under the directorship of revered art historian Borys Voznytsky, the Lviv Art Gallery became a significant museum center with multiple branches. In recognition of the size and quality of its collection, it received its status as the National Art Gallery of Ukraine in October, 2009 and on April 12, 2013, the Lviv National Gallery of Arts became the Boris Vosznytsky Lviv National Gallery of Arts, in honor of Vosznytsky's more than 40 years service, through the period Soviet rule and into that of independent Ukraine,
The Collection
The Gallery's collections are spread (in some cases for logistical purposes) across numerous sites in and around Lviv, with the bulk of the collections held in two 19th century palaces near the city center. Lozynsky Palace (built in 1872-1874, architect F. Pokutynsky) was the site of the original 1907 institution. Today Lozynsky houses some of the newest art, while the recently renovated Potocki Palace (completed 1890, designed by French architect Louis Dovern) houses the older work.
Lozynsky Palace: 19th & 20th century European Art
Eastern European Art, 19th — early 20th century
The chronological and stylistic principle of the art on display in the first exhibition galleries is intended to highlight the complexity and diversity of the artistic and intellectual life, in particular in Lviv, starting from the early 19th century. This was a time of intense political chaos in Eastern Europe, as colonizing empires competed for political control. Amidst this chaos, the depiction of historical landmarks, historical monuments, castles, or even of applied arts or individuals, assumed a highly political flavor.
In this context, Wilhelm Leopolski's historical painting The Death of Acerna (1865-7) is presented as it was intended: a celebration of specifically Polish heroism, seen through the lens of a Polish poet, in a scene taken from the poem of the same name by Władysław Syrokomla (1823—1862). Acerna, the 16th century Polish patriot poet, is shown on his deathbed in the mode of a stoic.
The folly of war and the death of Napoleon's troops in the war of 1812 are reflected in Wojciech Kossak's historical painting Spring, 1813 (1904). The carnage the image depicts, superficially a representation of the expulsion of an invading force, more deeply reflects the local tragedy that the Poles took part in the war on the side of Napoleon, mistakenly believing that he would become the liberator of Poland and the country would restore its statehood.
Ottyniowice-born Artur Grottger, by contrast, is represented by his paintings of Ukrainian types, Ukrainka, and Sketch of a Peasant Woman Wearing a Headscarf (1831), with his paintings Nocturne (1864), and United by Death imbued less with heroic ideals than with longing for the dead.
Also in these galleries are the works of François Gérard, Jacek Malczewski, Mykhailo Boichuk, Peter Kholodny, Yaroslava Muzyka and others.
Matejko Collection
Jan Matejko (1838-1893) was one of the foundational artists of the Lviv Gallery collection. His work was included at the Gallery's inaugural 1902 exhibition, and exemplifies the foundational principals of the gallery. The Lviv Gallery holds the largest collection of Matejko's work, outside of Poland. The work demonstrates the wide range of Matejko's artistic expression, including both major treatments of historical themes (Carl Gustav and Szymon Starowolski at the Locket Tomb) and important intimate family paintings (Portrait of the Artist's Children, 1879). Matejko's intense interest in the historical record of his nation and his desire to promote Polish patriotism push his work beyond illustration of history to commentary upon its moral content.