Standing With Ukraine: A Tribute to Maria Prymachenko
The events of the past week have been devastating to millions of Ukrainians as well as a stunned global audience. In the end, the people who pay for war are civilians - stripped of lives, homes, culture, and hope.
On this occasion, we stand in solidarity with Ukraine and pay tribute to the life and work of the late Maria Prymachenko, an eminent Ukrainian folk artist whose 25 works burned on Sunday when Russian militia set fire to the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum, northeast of the capital city of Kyiv.
Maria Prymachenko, Pretty Pig, 1965. Gouache on paper. 60 x 85 cm.
Just two days before the Ivankiv museum was torched, the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art in Zagreb, Croatia, opened its virtual exhibition commemorating renowned artist Maria Prymachenko (1909-97), whose works were exhibited there in 2007 under the patronage of the Ukrainian Embassy in Croatia.[1] The exhibition's theme confronts the eternal battle of good and evil—which now feels far more poignant than they ever could have intended. Prymachenko’s work embodies a strong sense of line and pattern and uses bold colours and iconic images from myth and zoology, and the exhibition’s curated selection features bright paintings of many imaginative creatures. In the 2007 catalogue, Ukrainian artist and friend Mykole Žulinskija wrote that her work depicts “pagan fantasies about the world around us, conveying fantastic characters, patterns, magical signs, and symbols that were born in the imagination of our ancestors.”[2]
Maria Prymachenko in 1936.
Prymachenko was born in 1909 to a peasant family in Bolotnia where she suffered polio as a young child, leaving her unable to walk for many years.[3] She took up crafts from her mother, who taught her decorative skills like embroidery and egg painting, through which she could express her creativity. After working in the Ivankiv Co-operative Embroidery Association in the late 1920s, she was scouted by Tetiana Flora, an artist and master weaver from Kyiv. Flora brought her to the Kyiv Art Museum’s Experimental Workshop in preparation for the First Republican Folk Art Exhibition of 1936 that later travelled to Moscow and Leningrad. Her work was swiftly exhibited in Paris the following year next to the likes of Matisse and Chagall.[4]
Maria Prymachenko, May That Nuclear War Be Cursed!, 1978. Gouache on paper. 61.5 x 86.3 cm.
After multiple operations, she eventually regained use of her legs but used crutches for the remainder of her life.[5] In 1941 she married Red Army lieutenant Vasyl' Marynchuk and gave birth to a son, Fedir. After Ukraine was occupied by the Nazis, she tragically lost both her brother Ivan and her husband. The war resulted in a creative hiatus, which lasted nearly two decades.[6]
Maria Prymachenko, Beaver, 1979. Gouache on paper. Museum Art Reproductions, WahooArt.
By the 1970s Prymachenko had begun painting and quickly developed a distinct aesthetic. She became recognised for her ability to convey unbearable physical and emotional pain with vivid imagination and whimsy, incorporating both her life’s struggles and joys concretely into her work. She is subsequently well-known for her “philosophy of the good” for the “joy of people.”[7]
Regarding her signature style, Prymachenko once said:
I make sunny flowers because I love people, I create for joy, for the happiness of people, so that all peoples love each other, so that they live like flowers on the whole earth.[8]
Prymachenko’s enduring spirit inspired a nation as well as the global art world. She is a critical figure from 20th-century Ukrainian culture and the winner of the 1996 Taras Shevchenko National Prize. Innumerable reproductions of her work have been printed, including postage stamps issued by Ukraine, and UNESCO declared 2009 to be the year of Maria Prymachenko.[9]
Ukraine's Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko has called for UNESCO to renounce Russia of its membership in the organisation, according to the director of the Vyshhorod Historical and Cultural Reserve Vlada Litovchenko, who has called the incident an “irreparable loss” during “hellish days.” Artists worldwide have also called for UNESCO to intervene.
“[Russia’s] actions have already caused damage to the ancient city of Tavriian Khersones, listed on the World Heritage list, as well as the Bakhchisaray Palace of the Crimean Khans,” among other cultural heritage objects, Tkachenko has been quoted as saying via an encrypted messaging system.[10]
Maria Prymachenko, Ukrainian Bull, Three Years Old, Went Walking Through the Woods and Garners Strength, 1983. Gouache on paper. 61.3 x 85.5 cm.
Although 25 paintings have been lost, Prymachenko’s legacy remains. The artist shared not only her imagination but a sense of fortitude and enduring love for human beings, and it was said that although she could be severe in character, she was warm to people. She opened her home to friends and enjoyed pouring them a glass of her homemade vodka, often gifting them paintings. On this day, when resolution feels obstructed and out of reach, we salute the strength of a Ukrainian national treasure.
If you want to donate to assist in crisis relief and response in Ukraine, you can do so via the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund. As the crisis evolves, funds are made directly and immediately available to a wide range of partner organisations on the front lines of response.
[1] Denmark, Nikolina. “Ukrainian Folk Artist Maria Prymachenko Featured by Croatian Museum of Naïve Art,” in Total Croatia News. 28 February 2022.
[2] HMNU Hrvatski muzej naivne umjetnosti
[3] Oleksandr Naiden, Mariia Pryimachenko, Ornament prostoru i prostir ornamentu. Kyiv, 2011-2012.
[4] Kerziouk, Olga. “Maria Prymachenko’s fantastic world of flowers and animals” in British Library European Studies Blog, 9 February 2018.
[5] Oleksandr Naiden, Mariia Pryimachenko 100.Kyiv, 2009
[6] “Prymachenko Paintings Biography” in Skudelnica. 2021.
[7] Antonenkio, Alisa. “To People’s Joy,” 29 September, 2016.
[8] Tomak, Masha. “Because I love people…” in Day.Kyiv, 18 November 2018.
[10] Chow, Vivienne. “Russian Forces Burned Down a Museum Home to Dozens of Works by Ukrainian Folk Artist Maria Prymachenko” in Artnet.
Camille Moreno
Features Co-Editor, MADE IN BED