Maria Prymachenko

Maria Oksentiivna Prymachenko (12 January 1909, Bolotnia village, Kyiv region — 18 August 1997, ibid.) was a Ukrainian folk painter and master of naïve art. She received no formal artistic education and attended school for only four years before suffering a severe attack of poliomyelitis. In the late 1920s she joined the Ivankiv Cooperative Embroidery Association. In 1935 she was invited to the Central Experimental Workshops attached to the Kyiv Museum of Ukrainian Art. Her works were displayed at the First Republican Exhibition of Folk Art in 1936 in Kyiv, Moscow, Leningrad and Warsaw, and in 1937 at the World's Fair in Paris, where the artist was awarded a gold medal. During the 1930s and 1940s she moved from embroidery to painting, first in watercolour and later in gouache. In 1966 she became a laureate of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR for the series 'For People's Joy'. In 1970 she received the title of Honoured Art Worker of the Ukrainian SSR, and in 1988 People's Artist of Ukraine. Her notable works include 'Blue Bull' (1947), 'Pea Beast' (1971), 'Wild Chaplun' (1977) and the series dedicated to the Chornobyl disaster. UNESCO declared 2009 the Year of Maria Prymachenko.

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