Johann Georg Pinsel

“One of the worst moments in my explorations was the discovery in Horodenka. Dumped in the middle of the temple, on a three-metre high pile, were the remains of wooden sculptures. Under all the broken pieces, at the very bottom, torn off the great altar, were the heads of Saints Elizabeth and Joachim. Alongside this pile of rubble, lay the headless figure of St. Anna, with saw-marks where the figure had already been cut into to feed the furnaces of the trade school. (...) We took the sculptures from the church to the truck. We loaded the truck bed to the very top, separating the figures with branches from nearby trees and bushes ”. [B.Woźnicki, Jan Jerzy Pinsel, 2007]
This is how Borys Woźnicki - Ukrainian art historian, director of the Lviv Art Gallery, described the moment of discovery of the works of Johann Georg Pinsel in the ruined and abandoned church in Horodenka.

Most of the works of Pinsel, outstanding sculptor of the mid-18th century, which have survived to this day, have done so thanks to the care of people involved in the protection of cultural heritage. In the mid-twentieth century, the works were transferred from abandoned and decaying churches in Horodenka and Hodowica to the Lviv Art Gallery, and thus saved at the last minute from total destruction.

Johann Georg Pinsel - a master of late Baroque sculpture, ran his workshop in Buchach in what today is Ukraine. For about 10 years - from about 1750 to the architect's death in 1759, he worked in close conjunction with distinguished architect, Barnard Meretyn. Both were employed by magnate Mikołaj Bazyli Potocki - benefactor of numerous churches. Pinsel educated many sculptors and woodcarvers in his workshop. Among his students and associates, confirmed in documents, were Maciej Polejowski and Antoni Sztyl.

Pinsel is considered to be one of the most outstanding sculptors of the late Baroque, in Poland. His output, of exceptional artistic value, influenced the work of Lviv's artistic community to such an extent that researchers were able to distinguish what became referred to as Lviv Rococo sculpture created by Pinsel and his cohort, in the second half of the 18th century.

Pinsel's distinctive artistry, characterized by deep expression and dynamic composition, precision and attention to detail, and the unique decorative treatment of sculpted garments, was imitated and echoed by artists throughout the second half of the 18th century.
The works of sculptors and woodcarvers belonging to this movement, or inspired by Lviv Rococo, sculpture could be found in the churches of different denominations in Lviv and throughout the Ruthenian voivodeship, the border of Volhynia, as well as in the areas of Sandomierz and Chełm.

Archival sources confirm that he is the author of the sculptural decorations of the Church of the Trinitarians of the Holy Trinity in Lviv, the Greek Catholic Cathedral of St. Jura in Lviv and the parish church in Monastyryska. He and his workshop counterparts also made sculptural decorations for the town hall in Buchach, the Missionary Church in Horodenka, and the parish church in Hodowica.
Documents concerning his private life were also found: his wedding to Marianna Elizabeth (née Majewska Kieytowa) in Buchach in 1751, and the baptisms of his two sons. We can only hazard a guess at the date of Pinsel's death from archives mentioning his wife's re-marriage, in 1762.

“And the second event: in the summer of 1961, we came to Hodowica. The church door was closed. With the consent of the village authorities, we took the figure of Samson and the Sacrifice of Isaac to the museum for safekeeping (...) We visited Hodowica for the second time in the mid-1960s. This time, the church’s door was wide open. In the middle of the church, there were traces of a recent camp fire. (...) we took everything that could be loaded into the car. (...) "The church in Hodowica - pearl of Meretyn's architectural work - burned down several years later." B. Woźnicki

“Seventy years of Soviet power in Ukraine and fifty years of power in Western Ukraine, brought to the brink the total demise of culture, a heritage established in these areas for many generations. […]” B. Woźnicki
In 1996, the Johann Georg Pinsel Museum was established in the baroque Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the convent of Poor Clares in Lviv. There are sculptures saved in the 1960s by Borys Woźnicki from the churches in Hodowica and Horodenka. Their return to the original places they were created for is impossible.
Today, the care of the cultural heritage of the Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth and the works of the outstanding Baroque artist is carried out by the Lviv National Gallery of Art named after Borys Woźnicki.