Yaroslav Pstrak

[1] When he was only a year old, his family moved to Kolomyia in a fruitless effort to improve their financial situation.

During this time, he received some informal lessons from the artists who visited his home; notably Kornylo Ustiyanovych.

He had to work at menial tasks to support himself until 1895, when he found a patron who supplied the funds necessary to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.

Fromm 1903 to 1907, he lived in small Hutsul villages; painting scenes from the folk culture and people in native costume, as well as preserving examples of traditional architecture.

By late 1915, an unspecified nervous disorder, combined with starvation, led him to seek care at a military hospital in Kharkiv.