Figurine “During the Interval”

Technique: Porcelain, polychrome painting.
Size: Height 20 cm.

Figurine “During the Interval”. USSR. Kyiv EKKhZ. 1960s–70s, author O. Zhnikrup, porcelain, polychrome underglaze painting, gilding. Overglaze maker's mark on the plinth of the sculpture. Height 20 cm. Excellent condition. Oksana Leontyevna Zhnikrup (31 January 1931, Chita – 13 January 1993, Kyiv) – Soviet porcelain sculptor, member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. She was born on 31 January 1931 in the city of Chita. She graduated from the sculpture department of the M. Grekov Odesa Art School (1948–1952). After graduating she was assigned to the Baranivka Porcelain Factory (she worked there from 1952 to 1954). From 1955 to 1987 she worked as a sculptor at the Kyiv Experimental Ceramic and Art Factory (KEKKhZ), where she also created a number of tableware forms, paintings and decal designs. Author of female sculptures, lyrical in their imagery, devoted to themes of contemporary life and to literary characters: “Loves Me, Loves Me Not”, “May Night”; “Traffic Controller”; “Tea Drinking”; “Orderly”; “Ballerinas. Before the Performance”; “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep”; “During the Interval”; “Rushnychok”. From 1955 to 1993 she lived in Kyiv. Her works took part in republican exhibitions of decorative art and in international exhibition-fairs in Leipzig, Chicago, Zagreb, Thessaloniki, in Turkey and Canada. Oksana Zhnikrup's sculptures are held in the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art. Husband – Vladislav Ivanovich Shcherbina (1926–2017[2]), Ukrainian porcelain sculptor; Daughter – Leontina Vladislavovna Lozovaya, Ukrainian porcelain sculptor. On 12 May 2017 one of the most expensive and scandalous artists of our time, Jeff Koons, presented the sculpture “Seated Ballerina” in New York. It was discovered that Koons had copied “Ballerina Lenochka on a Pouffe” – a work by Oksana Leontyevna Zhnikrup. In 2015 a copy of the wooden version of the “Ballerina” was sold at a Phillips sale in London for 93 thousand 750 pounds sterling, and another copy went under the hammer at Sotheby’s for 52500 pounds. On 23 May 2017 Ukrainian media reported that the right to copy the figurine had been granted to Koons by the artist's daughter and heir, Leontina Vladislavovna Lozovaya.