Ivan Ivanec was a Ukrainian painter, graphic artist and art critic. His father, I. Ivanec, was a priest; his mother, M. Roshkevych, a writer. He studied painting in the Lviv studio of S. Batovskyi-Kachur (1912-1914). At the outbreak of World War I, he joined the ranks of the Sich-Riflemen and later became a Lieutenant in the Ukrainian Galician Army. He was a founding member (together with Yu. Butsmaniuk, P. Kholodnyi, Jr., O. Kurylas, Yu. Nazarak, and L. Perfeckyi) of the Press Section of the Ukrainian Sich-Riflemen and illustrator for their publication Chervona kalyna [Red Guelder-Rose Bush] and others.

He created cycles of drawings that documented the battle lines of the Sich-Riflemen, their underground lifestyle, and scenes of warfare. In 1922, he was held as a prisoner of war in Liberec, Czechoslovakia, with other soldiers of the Ukrainian Galician Army. He Participated in the cultural-artistic exhibitions of the internment camps organized in Josefov, Czechoslovakia, and worked on the journal Skytalets [Pilgrim]. After the war, in Prague, he studied at the Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts with I. Kulec and S. Mako (1923-1927) while concurrently completing a law degree at Charles University (1926).

He moved back to Lviv and lived there from 1927-1944. He joined ANUM, participated in exhibitions of the Lviv Professional Union of Plastic Artists (1932-1939), and organized the “Memorial Exhibition of the Ukrainian Sich-Riflemen” (Lviv, 1934). After joining SUOM, he served twice as its head (1942, 1944). He was appointed Director of the Lviv Picture Gallery from 1942 to 1944. In 1945, he left Lviv for Krakow, only to be arrested by the NKVD and sent to Siberia. In 1952, the Soviets ordered destruction of 720 of his works housed in the National Museum in Lviv. Surviving works can be found in museums and private collections in Lviv, Slovakia, the Czech Republic (Prague, Ostrava), and the United States.