Pyotr Ilyich Bilan

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Pyotr Ilyich Bilan (21 July 1921 – 22 September 1996) was a Soviet-Ukrainian painter and illustrator known for easel paintings, including portraits, landscapes, and themed scenes. He was born in Novaya Nikolaevka, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian SSR. He studied art at Odessa Art College before World War II and later continued his studies at Leningrad Art College and Kyiv Art Institute after the war. He lived and worked in Kyiv, and he was honored as an Artist of the USSR.

Bilan served as a soldier in World War II. He was captured by the Germans near the Belarus border in 1941 and became a prisoner. Condemned to death in 1942, he escaped by swimming across the Rhine into Switzerland at night, becoming one of the first Russian POWs to reach Switzerland. In Switzerland he stayed with a farming family, began painting, and worked as a translator for other refugees. He also studied art there, including at an art school for interned Italians in Kirchberg, and later escaped to France, traveling through Southern Italy and Egypt to Odessa, arriving in 1945.

After the war, Bilan continued painting and exhibiting in the USSR and abroad. He was a member of the USSR Academy of Arts and was awarded the title Honored Artist of the USSR. His works are held in the Kyiv Historical Museum, the Lviv National Museum, and private collections around the world. Pyotr Ilyich Bilan died in Kyiv on 22 September 1996.