Vasily Sedlyar

[1] Among his best known works were the murals at the Chervonozavodsk State Ukrainian Drama Theater [uk], which were later destroyed.

He was arrested at his home in Kharkiv by the NKVD, in 1936, on charges of espionage and counterrevolutionary activities; based on a trip to Germany, France and Italy that he had taken with Boychuk in 1927.

He was taken to a prison in Kyiv, confessed under torture and was executed by firing squad on 13 July 1937, along with Boychuk and the painter Ivan Padalka.

In 2009 the publishing house, Dukh i Litera, issued a new edition of Kobzar by Taras Shevchenko, with all eighteen of Sedliar's original illustrations, some in color.

[2] That same year, an exhibition of his surviving works was held at the National Art Museum of Ukraine.