Culture Share: Ukrainian Folk Artist: Maria Prymachenko
Maria Pryimachenko (Ukrainian: Приймаченко Марія Оксентіївна) (1908–1997) was a Ukrainian village folk art painter, representative of primitive / naïve art. A self-taught artist, she worked in painting, embroidery and ceramics. She was born and spent all her life in the village of Bolotnya in the Ivankiv Raion, Kiev Oblast, situated only 30 km (19 mi) from Chernobyl.
Іn her childhood Maria was taken ill with polio, and this painful disease influenced her life. By reports of her relatives, Maria grew а thoughtful and considerate person, having compassion for nature and every living thing. Images often арреаred to the artist in dreams and later materialized in her compositions. Maria Pryimachenko’s artworks depict fabulous mythological beasts and take their roots іn folk legends and fairy-tales, nourished bу real life and culture of the Ukrainian реорlе.
She painted on Whatman paper with factory-manufactured brushes and uses gouache and watercolors. She preferred gouache which gives a bright and thick decorative base with graphic contours. Apart from searches in color scheme, the artist strove to achieve expressive outlines and an effective rhythmical arrangement. Though Primachenko never studied art, her pictorial flair for bringing to life ideas, feelings and impressions gradually ripened into true mastery.
She described her first artistic experiments in later life: "Once, as a young girl, I was tending a gaggle of geese. When I got with them to a sandy beach, on the bank of the river, after crossing a field dotted with wild flowers, I began to draw real and imaginary flowers with a stick on the sand… Later, I decided to paint the walls of my house using natural pigments. After that I've never stopped drawing and painting.” The world of Maria Pryimachenko is primarily mythological and zoological, original to her and and similar pieces in embroidery, weaving, decorative painting of interiors were not present in the region of Kyiv-Polissia, before her.
During childhood, Prymachenko's mother taught her embroidery, and by the late 1920s or early 1930s she was a member of the Ivankiv Co-operative Embroidery Association. Her talent was recognised by the artist Tetiana Floru, who invited Prymachenko to work at the Central Experimental Workshop of the Kyiv Museum of Ukrainian Art in 1935.
In Kyiv, Prymachenko underwent two operations, which enabled her to stand unaided. She also met her partner Vasyl Marynchuk there. In March 1941, their son Fedir Prymachenko was born in Kyiv. Vasyl, eventually was sent to fight in WWII and died in Finland . Prymachenko's brother was killed by the Nazis. She returned to Ivankiv and worked on a collective farm. Fedir also became a folk artist and a master of naiveté; he died in 2008. Prymachenko's grandsons Petro and Ivan also became artists.
The 1936 First Republican Exhibition of Folk Art featured Prymachenko's paintings. This exhibition was shown in Moscow, Leningrad, and Warsaw. Prymachenko was awarded a first-degree diploma for participating in this exhibition of folk art. In 1937, the artist's works were exhibited in Paris, where she gained notoriety. Exhibitions of her works have proved tremendously popular in Moscow, Poland, Bulgaria, France, and Canada.
Prymachenko's works were inspired by Ukrainian, and in particular Polesian folk traditions. They include references to the natural world and to fairy-tales. During the 1930s, she made a transition from embroidery to painting, and her works from this period are painted onto white backgrounds. Her bold and expressive linework was developing and she was combining traditional Ukrainian motifs in new ways.
During the 1960s to 1980s, her style continued to develop, with paintings having an increasingly vibrant colour palette and a new choice of bright backgrounds for her works. At this time she moved from working in watercolour to working in gouache. In the 1970s Prymachenko also began to include short phrases or proverbs on the reverse of her canvases, which related to the topic of the work.
In 1966, Prymachenko was awarded the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared that 2009 was the year of Prymachenko. A street in Kyiv and a minor planet are both named after her. Pablo Picasso, after visiting a Prymachenko exhibition in Paris, said: "I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian."
The Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum, where several works by Prymachenko were held, was burned during the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the supposed loss of 25 of her works, as well as many other artists works. However, according to a social media post by journalist Tanya Goncharova, local people were able to save some of Prymachenko's works from the fire.[1]
Vlada Litovchenko, director of the Vyshhorod Historical and Cultural Reserve, noted that the museum was home to not only Prymachenko's works, but to other Ukrainian artists, such as Hanna Veres, as well; she stated: "Another one of the irreparable losses of the historical-cultural authority of Ukraine is the destruction of the Ivankiv Historical-Cultural Museum by the aggressor in these hellish days for our country.
For more information on Maria Prymachenko go to:
(excerpts taken from) HerArtPodcast
British Library: Maria Prymachenko’s fantastic world of flowers and animals
The Times: Russia-Ukraine war: How Maria Prymachenko’s art was saved from Putin’s troops
Ukrainian Art Library: MARIA PRYMACHENKO
Maria Prymachenko - A Dove Has Spread Her Wings And Asks for Peace, 1982. Ukrainian Naïve and Folk Art Artist (1909-1997)
Maria Prymachenko, Our Army, Our Protectors (1978)
