Pilko David Isaakovich was born on April 4, 1926, in Prydniprov'ya. Today, the name of this talented and original artist in our city is practically forgotten. His paintings have been preserved in Dnipro, which few people know about. In 2019, more than 40 landscapes were donated to Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” by Vitaliy Mykhailovych Gorbenko, who once worked with David Isaakovych.

In his youth, D. I. Pilko was fond of circus arts. After a trip to Moscow, where he joined a circus school (the group of the famous “Karandash”), he returned to Dnipropetrovsk.

In 1941, David Isaakovich went to Kyiv and entered a craft school. The German-Soviet war began. Together with the school in the very first days, he was evacuated to the Urals, to the city of Kurgan, where he worked at a military factory until 1945. After the war, returning to Dnipropetrovsk, he learned that his entire family had been shot one day at the beginning of the occupation of the city. Not a single photograph, not a single letter, not a single document remained. The gifted young man began to visit art studios, went to sketches, wrote productions. He met Dora Boltyanska, married her, and their son Alexander was born.

Since 1965, David Pilko has been exhibiting his works both in the USSR and abroad.

There are still people in Dnipro who remember well the artistic short figure with luxurious loose hair, with an easel or an album. This is David Isaakovich Pilko. He worked a lot in the open air; his creative highlight is the images of old Katerynoslav.

David Pilko was a born Master of Landscape (he followed the school of Ukrainian artist Petro Levchenko). Among his teachers were V. Khovaev, I. Danylets, L. Surzhansky, M. Pushny. In addition, David was musically gifted: he played stringed instruments well – guitar, mandolin, kobza. The spirit of art always reigned with the Pilko family. The son followed in his father's footsteps, painted a lot.

After the death of his wife, David Isaakovych moved to his son in St. Petersburg. He died in 2008 and was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery.

In 2018, our Museum hosted an exhibition of works by David and Oleksandr Pilko, organized by friends of the artists.

Lyudmila Sandul