Europe, literally consumed Bohomazov. There is a remarkable transformation
between the 1915 work Caucasus (Geryusi) and the dynamic Caucasus, Undulating
Composition, painted slightly later. The former is more figurative, there are people
walking at the forefront of the painting, whilst the latter drifts into almost total
abstraction, rare for the artist, but the stars and moon are discernable amidst
what appears to be a snowstorm.
In late 1916 Bohomazov returned to Kyiv to be with Wanda for the birth of their
daughter, Yaroslava, the following spring. The birth ushered in the third phase of
the artist's career. Silence.
The period between 1917 and 1925 was essentially a struggle for survival, both
for the Bohomazovs and in Ukraine more broadly. The Kyiv-born writer Mikhail
Bulgakov best summed up the period in his book 'White Guard', when the
government in Kyiv changed eleven times between 1917 and 1921. Death,
famine and pestilence overtook Ukraine whilst 1920 saw the death of Wanda's
father, Vitold, and the artist himself contracting tuberculosis.
'I remember a terrible day', recalled Yaroslava, 'my mother and our good
acquaintance…were whispering together…my father was absent. This was the
day he fell ill. He had gone out delirious, gibbering, with a high temperature. All
day he was walking somewhere and was only found late towards night, by a
church. That day, as I found out later, he had found out his diagnosis, tuberculosis
of the lungs…'
Caucasus. Undulating Composition, 1915-16 The Caucasus (Geryusi), 1915
