MYKOLA BABAK FOUNDATION

On the Google Arts & Culture platform, our foundation’s account is now available a new online exhibition dedicated to the figure of Hryhoriy Shevchenko, one of the most distinctive Ukrainian photographers of the early 20th century.
Hryhoriy Shevchenko left us a unique visual chronicle of the Ukrainian village: from bustling markets and windmills to authentic wedding ceremonies and archetypal images of rural beauties. His photographs are a rare combination of documentary accuracy and a deep artistic vision of an era that has irrevocably disappeared.
What you will learn at the exhibition:
• How the photographer managed to capture the everyday life of Kerelivka and its surroundings.
• Unique shots of “Shevchenkiana” and agricultural work.
• The tragic story of the master’s life, which was cut short during World War II.
This project was made possible thanks to the sincere support of our partners. The exhibition was prepared within the framework of a grant from the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and Aid for Artists. We sincerely thank you for the opportunity to preserve and promote Ukrainian cultural heritage at the global level!
We invite you to view the exhibition in Ukrainian and English.
Let’s tell the world about Ukrainian culture together!

The project “Naive is Free”, implemented by the Mykola Babak Charitable Foundation in partnership with the Ukrainian House, was shortlisted for the Bohdan Hawrylyshyn Family Foundation Responsibility Award in the “National Partnership Project” nomination!
This year, 165 projects from all over Ukraine were submitted to the competition. Each of them is an example of responsibility to the country in extremely difficult times. We sincerely congratulate the winners – initiatives aimed at supporting the Defense Forces of Ukraine. Today, this is our joint priority No. 1. Helping the front is the foundation on which our future rests.
The implementation of such a large-scale project as “Naive is Free” would be impossible without reliable partners. We express our deep gratitude to the team of the National Center “Ukrainian House” and personally its director Olga Vieru for the fruitful partnership, professionalism, and faith in the power of Ukrainian naivety. Your support has been key in making this project heard throughout the country.
Thank you to the Bohdan Hawrylyshyn Family Foundation for recognizing our work and for your continued support of Ukrainian civil society organizations!

Dear friends and partners!
The Mykola Babak Foundation sincerely congratulates you on ✨Christmas and the New Year 2026🐎!
May Christmas bring light, quiet hope and a sense of meaning even in difficult times. May the new year be a year of renewal, inner strength and joint work to preserve our culture, memory and identity.
We thank everyone who supports Ukrainian art, cultural heritage and living tradition. It is together that we prove: culture is what holds, inspires and gives the future.
We thank the defenders of Ukraine for the opportunity to live, remember and celebrate Christmas under the Ukrainian sky.
We wish you peace, warmth, health and faith – in yourself, in Ukraine and in the fact that light always wins.
Sincerely,
The Mykola Babak Foundation

On December 25, the Cherkasy Art Museum hosted a presentation of the project “Kerelivka Photographer. The Heritage of Hryhoriy Shevchenko”, which was implemented by the Mykola Babak Foundation with the support of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and Aid for Artists.
As part of the project, a mock-up of a monograph about the photo artist Hryhoriy Petrovych Shevchenko was created, as well as a virtual exhibition on the Google Arts & Culture platform (it is currently at the verification stage).
The monograph includes two articles by the leading researcher of the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Philological Sciences Lesya Generaliuk, as well as an article by the director of the T. G. Shevchenko Museum of Kobzar Olga Sharapa and the initiator of the project Mykola Babak (co-authored). The monograph was recommended for publication by the Academic Council of the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the NAS of Ukraine. The publication has 250 pages and contains over 150 black-and-white and color illustrations.
The presentation of the project was attended by Deputy Head of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration Oleksandr Shamray, Head of the Department of Culture and Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration Oleksandr Shabatin, Rector of the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Cherkasy National University Oleksandr Cherevko, General Director of the National Reserve “Taras Shevchenko’s Homeland” Lyudmila Shevchenko, Director of the Cherkasy Regional Museum of Local Lore Iryna Sobko, scholars of higher education institutions and representatives of the cultural community of the city of Cherkasy, guests of the event.
The results of the project became another contribution to the work on actualizing the figure of Hryhoriy Shevchenko in Ukrainian culture – an artist whose creative legacy for a long time remained in the shadow of the figure of his great ancestor Taras Shevchenko.
We thank everyone who attended the presentation of the project on Christmas Day and showed respect for the work of Hryhoriy Shevchenko.
The Mykola Babak Foundation is sincerely grateful to the Canada-Ukrainian Foundation and Aid for Artists for their trust, financial support for the implementation of the project, and consistent cooperation with Ukrainian institutions in the field of culture and other humanitarian areas.

The Mykola Babak Foundation is now presented on the international portal Google Arts & Culture!
This global platform unites over 2,000 museums and cultural institutions around the world, including the Louvre, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, as well as Ukrainian museums: the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Khanenko Museum, the Mystetskyi Arsenal, the Ivan Honchar Museum, the Mykola Babak Foundation.
This is of particular importance for Ukraine: our cultural heritage becomes available to millions of people around the world🌍. And in times of war, it is also a powerful tool for preserving and popularizing Ukrainian identity.
The Mykola Babak Foundation currently presents its own unique collections of Ukrainian traditional art on the platform: iconography, painting, photographs. The Foundation team is already working to supplement its collection posted on the portal with other artifacts.
👉 Visit the Foundation’s page on the Google Arts & Culture website and discover the world of Ukrainian heritage for yourself!
You can also check out the virtual exhibition about the Yarmolenko dynasty of naive artists, which is posted on the portal

On September 4, the opening of the exhibition “Kerelivka Photographer. The Heritage of Hryhoriy Shevchenko” from the collection of the Mykola Babak Foundation will take place! For the first time, Hryhoriy Shevchenko’s photographic heritage will be widely presented in his homeland – in the village of Shevchenkove (formerly Kerelivka) in the Taras Shevchenko Literary and Memorial Museum of the National Reserve “Taras Shevchenko’s Homeland”. Photographer Hryhoriy Petrovych Shevchenko was born in 1868 in the village of Kerelivka, Zvenyhorod district, Kyiv province (now the village of Shevchenkove in Cherkasy region). He was Taras Shevchenko’s great-nephew. During his photographic activity, Hryhoriy Shevchenko created many highly artistic photographs and unique photo postcards with images of the places where Taras Hryhoriych was born and spent his childhood. At his own expense, the photographer published about 160 unique photo postcards under the title “Types and Types of Ukraine”. He recorded for history a bright galaxy of outstanding figures, cultural figures, peasants, countrymen of the poet, picturesque Ukrainian landscapes.
Of the considerable achievements of the descendant of a great family, only a few dozen photographs and postcards have survived, which are in the collections of the National Taras Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv, the Taras Shevchenko Kobzar Museum in Cherkasy, and the Mykola Babak Foundation.
📍 Taras Shevchenko Literary and Memorial Museum in the village of Shevchenkove, Zvenyhorod district, Cherkasy region
📅 September 4
🕛 12:00
Project partner: MHP – Hromady Foundation
The exhibition is held with the assistance of the Department of Culture and Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration
Organizational partner: Taras Shevchenko Literary and Memorial Museum in the village of Shevchenkove
Project curator: Veronika Ganiechko

The Mykola Babak Foundation has received a grant from the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and Aid for Artists to implement the project “Kereliv Photographer: The Legacy of Hryhoriy Shevchenko”!
As part of this project, we will work on creating:
📖 a book mockup about Hryhoriy Shevchenko — a Ukrainian photographer, great-nephew of Taras Shevchenko;
🌐 a virtual exhibition that will present unique visual and documentary materials about the photographer’s work and his contribution to national culture.
This project is another step towards preserving and popularizing little-known names in Ukrainian culture, as well as a worthy representation of our heritage in the world.
Thank you to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and Aid for Artists for your trust and support!
Stay tuned — we will show the first results soon.
📸 In the photo — Hryhoriy Shevchenko with his camera reading a newspaper. 1930s.