Maria Prymachenko: Ukrainian folk artist admired by Picasso and Chagall

Maria Oksentiyivna Prymachenko, born in Bolotnya on January 12, 1909, gained international recognition after 25 of her works were destroyed in the Ivankiv Local History Museum during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A self-taught artist, she began drawing as a child, inspired by her mother's embroidery. She contracted polio, which confined her to bed but deepened her artistic practice. Her talent was discovered by local artist Tetiana Floru, who invited her to a workshop in Kyiv. Prymachenko's vibrant watercolors of imaginary animals and flowers won a prize at a 1936 USSR national art exhibition and were shown in Paris, Warsaw, Sofia, Montreal, and Prague. In 1937, she received a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, though she never left Ukraine. She married Vasyl Marynchuk, who died in war, and her brother was executed by Nazis. She stopped painting for a time but later resumed, expanding her subjects and techniques. Pablo Picasso said, "I bow before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian woman," and Marc Chagall's animal figures were influenced by hers. She founded a children's art school in Bolotnya and wrote aphorisms on the backs of her later works. UNESCO dedicated 2009 to her.