Ivan Shulga was born 31 October 1889 in the village of Mikhailovka (now Skadovsk district). The family soon moved to the town of Skadovsk. Here he spent his childhood and adolescence. In his memory of this town will forever remain lit by the sunset sea harbour, sandbanks and beaches with boats on the shore. The need to render the world in the form of drawings appeared at Shulgi when he was still in Skadovskiy folk school. The family lived in poverty, and Ivan worked in the local pub, painting trays, beer mugs, plates, wooden spoons. He turned out not only beautiful, and unusual, unconventional. Ability for painting was noticed by Skadovskiy intelligentsia. In favor of Shulgi were given a charity concert. The 16-year-old Ivan is going to do at the Odessa art College. With the teachers he was lucky. In the basics of classical painting Shulga dedicated K. K. Kostandi, G. A. Ladyshenskaya, D. K. Krainev. Studies with Ivan was easy. He often received cash rewards and other rewards. Excellent finishing school in 1911, Shulga has been recommended for admission to the St. Petersburg Academy of arts without taking the test exams. It was here, in the workshops of such masters of brush as I. of Curd and V. E. Savinsky, Ivan was enriched by the professional knowledge of the basics of painting and drawing. Here he tries his hand at creating theme songs: "Wedding" (1913), "Meeting" (1915).
After completing his studies at the Academy (1917), Ivan Shulga returns home in Skadovsk. The October revolution, the civil war, the construction of a new state – all this has turned the creative plans Shulgi. It was not easy for the young artist, educated at the classical school of painting, to adapt to socialist realism. That led Shulga double creative life. For a piece of bread a day, he painted the banners and banners for one of the units of the red Army, which was formed in Kherson (from 1918 to 1922 lived Shulga in Kherson), carried out the order of the provincial party Committee on the creation of a portrait of Lenin, and in the evenings until midnight and wrote for the soul. What is a small pastel "Front of house": a modest little house and cozy patio, shrouded in Kherson summer heat like melting in the midday haze. The duality of creativity accompanied him to the end of life. In their desires as an artist, he gravitated to the portrait and genre art. And I had to paint that all one hundred percent would have adorned a private collection: "Concrete plant" (1932), "On the Dnieper" (1930), "G. I. Petrovsky from farmers" (1931), "Plant them. G. I. Petrovsky Dnipropetrovsk" (1935)... and the whole industrialization of the country Councils are sometimes kept in the storerooms of museums. And today it's impossible to appreciate the work of Shulgi as "scattered" they are in different cities and ended up in private collections. This "Seeing the recruits" (1911), and "Gypsy woman" (1916), and "Shepherdess" (1917), and "Evening" (1919), and many, many others.
In 1922, Ivan moved to Kharkov – a city that would be his only until the end of life. Enchanted by its architecture Shulga creates urban landscapes: "Central post office" (1933), "the Former South station" (1933) and many others. When there are about twenty species, Shulga based on them issued a series of postcards with the views of Kharkov.
During the Second world war, the artist with his family was evacuated to Ufa. To this period of his work belongs to the portrait of academician A. A. Bogomolets, executed in classical manner. Evacuated born the idea of the movie "Pereyaslav Rada", written in 1944.
In 1950-ies of the Shul if began to re-examine their attitude to life, art. His new work "Koktebel", "On the roads. Yalta", "In the Park. Autumn", "Sea" becoming increasingly intimate in nature. The beauty and richness of the world the artist is trying to convey through a bouquet of flowers or area in autumn Park.
The last years of his life Ivan Nikolayich gave a teaching at the Kharkov art Institute, combining it with work at the easel.
(The author - A. N. Outrunner, the Torque SV No. 24)
