David Burliuk: How a Student from Odessa Became the Father of Futurism

His painting "In the Church" set an all-time Ukrainian record at a Sotheby’s auction in 2007, when it sold for $650,000. The following year, in 2008, his painting “Japanese Fisherman” was sold for $542,000. And his painting “Rural Landscape” was stolen by the occupiers from the Kherson Museum.

Thousands of his works are scattered around the world. And the artist’s ashes were scattered over the Atlantic Ocean, just as he had wished.

Intent continuesits series of articles about people whose lives are connected to Odesa.

A Boy from a Talented Ukrainian Family

It is impossible to cover all the facets of the talent and the milestones in the life of David Burliuk, a world-renowned artist originally from what is now the Sumy region. The village of Semyrotivka, where he was born in 1882, has existed on the map only formally since the 1990s. But at the end of the 19th century, things were quite different. David Fedorovich Burliuk, who worked as an agronomist and managed Count Mordvinov’s estate, had six children. The eldest, David, became the most famous of all the members of this talented family.

“… On my father’s side, we are Ukrainian Cossacks, descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Our nickname on the street was ‘Pysarchuk’—we were clerks in the Zaporozhian Army. My father wrote poetry in Russian and Ukrainian, but very little in his native language. Of all the writers, I knew Gogol best of all, having memorized a great many passages from his works. My father usually read Taras Shevchenko to us in Ukrainian. Reading “Petrus” always ended in tears.” This is how David Burliuk would later write about his origins.

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David Burliuk. “Cossack Mamai” (1912). SOURCE: uamodna.com

Youth in Odesa

Our city entered David Burliuk’s life during his youth, when, in 1900, he enrolled in the Odessa Art School. There, his teachers included artists well-known in Odessa—Kiriak Kostandi, Gennadiy Ladyzhensky, and sculptor Luigi Iorini. His father had secured a job at the “Zolota Balka” estate near Novovorontsovka in the Kherson region, on the banks of the Dnieper River. It was there that the new student spent his vacations.

Throughout the summer of 1902, the budding artist painted the picturesque landscapes of the Dnieper. He later recalled: “Now the night watchman would wake me when the Ukrainian stars began to fade, when a veil of mist began to settle over the Zaporizhzhia Dnieper in the cold predawn air, and I, grabbing the box of paints I had prepared the night before, would run to the banks of the Dnieper to paint the spring dawn, the mud-brick huts of the Zaporizhzhia people, the blue distances, and the willows, poplars, and steppe burial mounds. This continued until fall.”

Over the summer, he painted three hundred and fifty (!) sketches, which the hardworking student proudly showed to his Odessa professors and received a harsh verdict: “This isn’t art, but some kind of mass-produced work.”

The young man studied at the Odessa school for only a year. He then transferred to Kazan. But his time in Odessa left him with a passion for Impressionism, inspired above all by Kiryak Kostandi. “And when I returned to Kazan in 1901–02, missing my friends there, the countless sketches of the South that I had brought back with me showed considerably more softness and an understanding of tone.”

While studying, David settled across from the art school—in the Tolstoys’ mansion at 9 Preobrazhenskaya Street. And it was here that Burliuk would return in 1910, when he came to receive his “diploma” from the Odessa Art School. It was this document that gave him the right to teach and earn a living.

“Later, ten years later, upon returning to the Odessa Art School to ‘receive his diploma,’ he came back to that same old house, went up to that same floor, into that same apartment, and settled in to fully feel like a student, in that same room: ‘under the roof,’ with embrasure windows, where the Vorontsov Lighthouse traced streaks of its lights across the ceiling. The floor in the room was slanted diagonally; a dumbbell used for gymnastics fell and rolled with a clatter toward the outer wall.” The dumbbell belonged to his brother Vladimir, who was also a student at the Odessa Art School. 

The Father of Futurism

The years that followed were no less turbulent. David became fascinated with poetry and participated in exhibitions. He actively exhibited his works at Izdebsky’s “Salons.” He studied in Europe and met Mayakovsky. Everything he and his friends did ran counter to established conventions. There were no precedents for their art in the past, which is precisely why it came to be called “Futurism.”

In general, David Burliuk’s tempestuous nature felt constrained by any single style, so he experimented with various styles and techniques. For example, he was one of the first to use the collage technique, incorporating gears, pieces of plywood, and metal plates into his works. Sometimes the artist’s own body became a sort of “canvas” for him.

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David Burliuk. PHOTO: uamodna.com

The Futurists’ outrageous performances provoked outbursts of righteous indignation among the conservative public. What kind of nonsense is this? Daring young men with painted faces reciting incomprehensible poems and drawing triangles instead of human figures. The spectacle simultaneously repulsed and captivated ordinary Odessans. They chased the Futurists through the city streets, forcing the artists to go into hiding. Once, trying to avoid unwanted attention, the young artists walked into one of Odessa’s restaurants, and within just a few minutes, all the tables were filled with curious Odessans. As a token of gratitude, the restaurant owner refused to charge the Futurists for the beer they drank.

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David Burliuk. “The Coming of Spring and Summer” (1916). SOURCE: odesa-memory.info

Emigration: From Japan to America

After the 1917 Revolution, the atmosphere of provocation and freedom gradually faded. And David Burliuk emigrated abroad. He lived in Japan for two years and was very active in his creative work. It was during this time that the first exhibition of Western art in this Eastern country took place. David Burliuk was the artist behind 150 of the 473 paintings on display. In total, during his two-year stay in Japan, he painted over 300 works. There are still admirers of the artist’s talent in Japan. For example, in 2013, translator Akira Suzuki donated the painting “Seascape” (1921), which he had discovered and restored, to the Sumy Art Museum.

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David Burliuk. “In the Rice Fields” (1921). SOURCE: uartlib.org

After Japan, Burliuk settled in the United States, where he continued his active creative work. In the 1930s, he published the magazine “Color and Rhyme,” and in the 1950s, he opened his own gallery. In the 1960s, he traveled to Australia, the Czech Republic, and Italy, where he exhibited his works.

In 1956 and 1965, he visited the USSR. However, both visits took place under the close surveillance of the secret police. Therefore, there was no question of the artist holding exhibitions or publishing his literary works at that time.

David Burliuk died in 1967 at the age of 85 in Hampton Bays, New York. His ashes were scattered over the ocean. And the ocean is, after all, much like the sea that Burliuk came to love so much in Odesa. “Odesa is a seaport: the entire city stretches along the streets toward the Euxine Port. That’s where I learned to love the sea.”

In 2016, a memorial plaque was installed in our city, and in 2023, Garshina Street was renamed in honor of David Burliuk.

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