Victor Cymbal was born at the turn of the last century in a
small village outside Kiev, served in the army in the Ukraine, spent time as a
POW in Poland, then escaped and fled to Prague, where he was another Ukrainian
refugee. A lifelong student of the arts, he became one again in Czechoslovakia.
A monograph of his work asserts, “There was consternation among art circles
when Cymbal, an unknown and foreign student, was awarded first prize.
Nevertheless, his pen-work in the manner of old woodcuts was without equal.”
He went to Buenos Aires as part of a group of Ukrainian
settlers, and was an oil painter and an artist in the theatre. Here, though,
are his commercial works, particularly those of a large, local optical concern.
His work is in the classical magazine style of the pre-World
War II period, and puts one in the mind of Virgil Finlay.
