Change of Сourse in Higher Art Education in Kharkiv: Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute

The article is devoted to the comprehension of three decades of experience in the creation of higher Art and Design education in Kharkiv (1960s – late 1990s) during the forced reorganization of the Kharkiv State Art Institute into the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute, which started in 1963. This process coincided with Khrushchev’s “Thaw” of the 1960s, against the background of the uncompetitiveness of Soviet subject design in the world and the urgent measures taken to introduce design education in Art universities of the USSR. The authors show the difficult path of approval of a new institution in Kharkiv and the design industry as a whole in its three main branches – industrial, graphic and environmental design, which happened due to the complex perception of this field by representatives of the older generation of easel artists. Only over the course of time, both directions – easel and design leveled off and began to develop successfully, reinforcing each other. It was the Design faculties that were able to maintain the potential for renewing the artistic staff of easel specialties, because during the 1960s and 1990s, the teaching staff was preserved and the graduation departments of the easel direction were restored. These departments began training of specialists in monumental and easel painting, easel and monumental sculpture, easel and book graphics, author’s poster, and restoration of works of easel and monumental painting. The design business, which caused some resistance and harassment by easelists at the beginning, later acquired an evolutionary character of development. The 1980s and 1990s were marked by significant changes in the methods of training of designers, who were already perceived by the wider artistic community as creative individuals, and artist-designers. Already at the end of the 1990s, new design branches were added to the experienced departments of Artistic Design, Industrial Graphics and Packaging, and Interior and Equipment, in particular Designing of Artistic and Decorative Fabrics. As a result, all these processes modernized the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute, which at the end of the 20th century already stood on the rails of the European direction. But there was still a long way to go to the state of a developed European Art School.