Viktor Zaretskyi is an outstanding Ukrainian painter who worked in easel and monumental painting.
He was born on February 10, 1925 in Bilopillia, Sumy region.
From 1947 to 1953 he studied at the Kyiv Art Institute, in the studio of Serhii Hryhoriev.
From 1953 to 1957 he taught at the Kyiv Art Institute.
He has been a member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine since 1956.
He worked as a monumentalist, but became known for his easel works.
He participated in numerous republican and regional exhibitions.
Together with his wife, the artist Alla Horska, he was one of the leaders of the Sixties movement, and from 1963 he was the head of the Kyiv Club of Creative Youth.
He organized his own art studio, which he headed from 1978 to 1985. He created the Ukrainian Secession movement and was the first to open the doors to contemporary Ukrainian art. More than 200 students studied in his art studio, including such famous artists as Olesia Avramenko and others.
He developed an original pedagogical system called "Reflections at the Canvas," the text of which was first published by his son in the magazine "Fine Arts" (No. 1-2, 1993).
In 1994, Zaretskyi was posthumously awarded the Taras Shevchenko State Prize.
Zaretskyi's works are kept in many museums of Ukraine and private collections.