Nikolay Shmatko (1943-2020) *77

was a Ukrainian sculptor and painter. He was born in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Shmatko became a sculptor at the age of 33, having previously been a firefighter. The life of Nikolai Shmatko was full of strange, sometimes mystical coincidences. In 1996 he met the famous model and gallerist Dina Vierny in France, who predicted his great future and advised him "not to scatter his works worldwide". During all his creative development Nikolai Shmatko created more than 750 various monuments and about 500 pictures without any support from the government or sponsors.

He worked in marble, inspired by European culture and art. His studio and gallery contain 100 sculptures (more than 70 of which are made of Ural and Italian marble); 30 plaster casts; and about 300 pictures (including paintings, graphics, and architectural designs). In total, there are approximately 750 pieces, ranging from simple decorations to bas-relief and high relief busts and sculptures. Some of these pieces are sexually explicit. Shmatko also worked in architecture, and had a design for a penis-shaped high-rise building.

In 2004, for his work "Sviatohorska Blessed Virgin" - a statue of the Virgin Mary (Theotokos "Hegumenia") for Sviato-Uspenskyi Sviatohorskyi Monastery - Shmatko was awarded the order of Nestor Letopisets by Volodymyr Sabodan, the Kiev Metropolitan, and all of Ukraine.

In the autumn of 2005 the Transfiguration church was opened in the village of Keleberda, Poltava region. Exclusively for this church, the sculptor created a marble sculpture "The Crucifixion".

In the fall of 2012, at the invitation of oligarch Viktor Baloha, Shmatko moved with his family to the city of Mukachevo.