Tatiana Nilovna Yablonskaya (1917–2015) is considered one of the most outstanding painters of her time. Throughout her long and eventful life, she held important positions in the field of culture, as well as taught at the Kiev Art Academy.
Tatiana Yablonskaya was born on February 24, 1917 in Smolensk, in the family of the graphic artist and literature teacher Neil Alexandrovich Yablonsky. When she was 11 years old, her family moved to Odessa, in 1930 — to Kamianets-Podilskyi, in 1934 — to Lugansk.
After studying at the Kiev Art College, Tatiana Nilovna entered the painting faculty of the Kiev State Art Institute. She graduated from this educational institution in 1941, having received the specialty “artist-painter” (workshop of Professor Fyodor Grigoryevich Krichevsky).
Two years before the graduation, Yablonskaya began to take an active part in exhibitions. During the artist’s long creative life, her works were shown at all-Ukrainian, All-Union and international exhibitions. More than 30 solo exhibitions were successfully held in Moscow, London, Budapest, Kiev and other cities. In 1949, for her creative achievements Tatiana Nilovna Yablonskaya was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
Tatiana Yablonskaya’s creative legacy consisted of numerous landscapes, genre paintings, and portraits. In 1952, she was invited to take part in the examination committee of the Yerevan Art Institute. The artist fell in love with Armenia. She visited this Soviet republic several times with her second husband, the artist Armen Arshakovich Atayan.
Tatiana Nilovna was able to highlight the national features of the dwellings’ architecture and to emphasize the most characteristic aspects of the Armenian rural landscape. The 1957 painting “Armenian Village” is on permanent display at the museum.
In 1982, Tatiana
Yablonskaya was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the USSR, and in 1987
she was awarded the Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Arts. In the last years
of her life, the artist painted mainly with her left hand, since her right hand
was paralyzed after she suffered a stroke.
