Alternative Life and Creative Creed of Ivan Zavadovsky

The aim of the article. The creativity of Lviv master Ivan Zavadovskyi (1937–1983) is still “terra incognita” in the history of Ukrainian artistic nonconformism. The reason was the deeply hidden creative activity from others, which included the artist’s notes on art theory and an entire gallery of paintings and graphics. The research is primarily aimed at studying and systematising the artist’s creative heritage. The next step is to gradually introduce certain sections of the master’s theoretical and artistic work into scientific circulation. Research methods. The initial stage of this research consists in studying and systematising the artist’s scattered manuscript materials. The manuscript materials are described and arranged by content. A comparative analysis is applied with similar processes in the world art. The author’s statements regarding the goals and objectives of art, his understanding of individual tendencies, styles and genres are studied from the point of view of art history analysis. Scientific novelty. For the first time, in this article, certain facts of I. Zavadovskyi’s biography, his philosophical, cultural and art views on the basis of the artist’s archive manuscript research are made public. Conclusions. The specificity of this study is the lack of publications about I. Zavadovskyi if not to take into account brief biographical notes on some information resources. The reconstruction of the master’s artistic faith based on the materials of his manuscripts and artistic works became one of the main results of this article. In particular, the conditions, under which I. Zavadovskyi’s creative personality was being formed, are indicated. The unique artist’s character of nonconformism position is shown. His concepts concerning the nature of arts, its essence and aims and the master’s place in the art process are analysed. It is worth mentioning that I. Zavadovskyi belonged to the artists for whom theoretisising was an indispensable part of their creativity. Such a master couldn’t be satisfied only with intuitive search of his way in art. That is why, the article emphasises the analysis of his programme formulations with their grounding and structure.