Stanislav Sartsevich, Sculpture garden

In the late 1960s, Stanislav Sartsevich, an inhabitant of the Ukrainian city of Luts’k, passionately began to create sculptures, which he installed in the front garden of his house in the old centre of the town. While limited information is available about his life, we know that he was a teacher, head of a post office and, for a very long time, an accountant at the department of social security. Although it is known that he also painted in a traditional “naïf” style, there are no reports that prior to the 1960s he had ever produced any sculpture.

However, once retired, he proved himself a productive sculptor, and the display of sculptures in his front garden became increasingly larger. The expanding sculpture garden stirred controversy among his neighbors, who felt that the grounds should only be used to grow vegetables. Although the local authorities, spurred on by the neighbors, tried to restrain Sartsevich’s activities, he paid no attention and assiduously continued the expansion of his work.

Fabricated from cement and painted in realistic colors, the garden was primarily comprised of figurative and animal sculptures. The latter included lions, deer, giraffes, elephants, and a variety of birds – in short, the kinds of animals one might see in a zoo – and all depicted in a realistic manner.

His life-sized sculptures of personalities were also rather realistic. Included were people from Luts’k, family members, friends, swimmers, partisans, and military characters. There was also a series of sculptures of well-dressed fashionable women wearing hats, which particularly attracted attention.

During his life Sartsevich received a degree of acknowledgement and appreciation for his creative activities. For example, in 1979 he was invited to take part in an exhibition of folk art in Luts’k. He also received good publicity when art historian Oleksandr Naiden wrote a positive article about him in the Russian magazine Decorative Art of the USSR (Issue 5, 1982).

However, after Sartsevich passed away in 1987, his heirs demolished the garden and sold the house, which was replaced by a modern two-story building. All that remains are old photos and videos of the garden as it existed in its prime during the 1970s and 1980s.

-Henk van Es 

Lutsk, Volyns'ka oblast ua
Latitude/Longitude: 50.747233 / 25.325383

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