Primachenko paintings. Biography

Maria Ovksentievna Prymachenko, a master of Ukrainian "naive art", carried through her whole life a thirst to create, an irresistible need to share her discoveries with people. She is one of those artists who created a unique world of their own images, a world of beauty, skillfully expressed the feelings that live among the people, in their folklore and thoughts.

Childhood of the artist

Bolotnya - the native village of Maria Prymachenko - is located 80 km from Kiev. It was here that the artist was born in January 1909. Her father was a carpenter and also a woodcarver. And her mother was a famous needlewoman of embroidery: the whole family wore embroidered shirts of her production. Maria's grandmother was also involved in creative activities - she painted Easter eggs.

The first in Mary appeared in early childhood: she was fond of drawing flowers in the sand. And then she began to paint the huts with blue patterns. Firebirds adorned the walls of houses and fantastic flowers bloomed. The villagers liked these drawings, which looked so beautiful on the walls and stoves.

After a while, the future artist began to receive the first orders: neighbors asked to decorate their houses with the same amazing patterns. Even residents of neighboring villages came to admire her work.

The artist's worldview and positive outlook on life

The biography of Maria Primachenko was not without difficult moments in life. As a child, the artist suffered from a terrible disease - poliomyelitis, which imposed its negative reflection on the fate of the craftswoman. Maria walked on crutches all her life. This fact also influenced the painting style of the author. Unbearable physical pain, combined with unbridled creative imagination and desire for life, poured into bizarre images. Now it is called art therapy. The opposition of joy and pain, good and evil, darkness and light is observed in every painting by Maria Prymachenko.

The artist had a rather strict character, but she was friendly to people. Sometimes Priymachenko gave pictures to guests of her house. There were two worlds for Mary. Everyone lived in the first, and the second, internal, belonged only to her.

Her world was filled with various fantastic creatures, wonderful birds sang here, fish learned to fly, rainbow cows with human eyes grazed in the meadow, and a kind brave lion was a protector from enemies.

The beginning of the work of Maria Primachenko

The artist became famous since 1936, when for the first time in Kiev at the All-Ukrainian Exhibition of Folk Art her works "Animals from the Swamp" were exhibited. Maria was awarded the 1st degree diploma. Here she began to get involved in ceramics and continued to engage in embroidery and painting. In particular, she wrote a number of wonderful paintings: "A goby on a walk", "Blue lion", "Pied beast", "Beast in red boots" 1936-1937, "Donkey", "Ram", "Red berries", " Monkeys are dancing ”,“ Two parrots ”and others (1937-1940).

The images of these works are striking in their fabulousness, magic and fantasticness. They are based on folklore legends, life stories and folk tales. Reality and fantasy are intertwined in her works. Animals, flowers and trees are endowed with the ability to talk, they fight for good and resist evil - everything is like in a fairy tale.

Birds also have fabulous properties: they have bizarre shapes, intricate outlines that resemble a flower, and the wings are decorated with embroidery. All the animals and birds in Mary's are sunny, colorful, pleasing to the eye with their positivity (“The elephant wanted to be a sailor,” “A young bear walks through the forest and does no harm to people”).

Creativity in the war and post-war periods

During the war, Maria Primachenko interrupts her creative pursuits and returns to her native village. Here she experienced the terrible years of her life. The war took her husband from her, who could not see his son. In the post-war period, the artist permanently lives in Bolotnya, turning her parents' house into a workshop. The year 1950 dates back to her embroidered panels "Peaves in grapes" on a blue background, on a brown background "Two apple trees", as well as paintings: "Two hoopoes in flowers", "Ukrainian flowers". In 1953-1959, Maria Prymachenko's drawings "Puss in Boots", "Peacock", "Crane and Fox", "Shepherds" became famous. These works testify to the improvement of the figurative manner of Primachenko.

Creativity 70-80s

A special flourishing of her work falls on the early 70s. If earlier the artist depicted real animals, then in the 70-80s. in her works, fantastic animals appear that do not exist in reality. This is a four-headed ancient swamp animal, and a swamp crayfish, and Horun, and a prus, and a wild gorbotrus, and a wild volezakh. She motivated the name of the wild chaplun with the word "chapati". Emphasis is placed on the paws of the beast, which can wade through the alder thickets. There are animals purple, black, blue; sad, funny, smiling, surprised. There are animals with human faces. Allegorical beasts are evil. For example, a purple beast in a "bourgeois" cap, painted with stylized bombs, grinned angrily, showing sharp teeth and a long, predatory tongue ("Damn the war! Bombs grow instead of flowers", 1984).

Style features

The artist's works are a combination of all possible artistic styles of the twentieth century: impressionism, neo-romanticism, expressionism. One of Maria Prymachenko's favorite themes, to which she often turned, is space. She loved the starry sky and inhabited it with her winged creatures - the hunchback, mermaids, birds. Even on the moon, she planted vegetable gardens, cherishing her magical dreams. Her wonderful world was magical and inimitable, unique and radiant, sincere and kind, like herself.

The creativity of the folk artist teaches people to notice beauty in everything. She tried to show each person individually how important it is to remain children even in old age, to maintain the ability to be surprised and see a lively interest in everything that happens around. The works of Maria Prymachenko really bring us back to childhood. There is nothing superfluous on them, we see only the irrepressible fantasy of a woman with an amazing soul, with folk energy displayed in the paintings.

When Maria was asked why she also draws flowers, she answered: “Why draw as they are, they are already beautiful, but I draw mine for the joy of people. I really want more people to see the drawings and so that everyone likes them. "

The genius of the artist

The world of art has discovered the amazing work of Maria Primachenko at least twice. The artist first gained popularity in 1935 as part of a campaign to find talent among the people. Then the works of the rural craftswoman attracted the attention of the metropolitan needlewoman Tatiana Flora, who collected masterpieces of folk art for the exhibition. As a result, the artist successfully works in the Kiev experimental workshops. The artist's talent contributed to the fact that she mastered the skills of modeling and painting clay products.

The artist's works quickly began to gain popularity abroad. Visitors of Moscow, Prague, Montreal, Warsaw and other European exhibitions could get acquainted with amazing animals. Art connoisseurs were shown drawings by Maria Prymachenko "Two Parrots", "Black Beast", "Dog in a Cap", "Beast in Red Boots", "Bull for a Walk", "Red Berries".

The world exhibition of Maria Pryimachenko, which took place in Paris, brought great fame to the Ukrainian artist, for which she was awarded a gold medal. It was in the French capital that venerable colleagues such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall first got acquainted with the artist's works. They appreciated her work and even began to use similar motives for their works.

The second time the talent of a folk artist was discovered in the 60s. This was facilitated by the famous art critic and playwright Grigory Mestechkin, as well as the journalist Yuri Rost. An article about the work of Maria Primachenko, which was published by a journalist in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, again made her popular.

Death of the artist

At the 89th year of her life, the outstanding artist died. But, fortunately, the family of Priymachenko-artists continued. Her best disciple was her son, Fedor, now honored. Her grandchildren, Peter and John, also followed her path. Today they are young, talented artists, each with a bright personality. Growing up alongside masters such as their grandmother and father, they adopted the best.

Perpetuation of the memory of Maria Primachenko

The small planet 14624 Primachenko was named after the folk craftswoman. This name was proposed by Klim Churyumov. In honor of the famous artist, a commemorative coin was issued in 2008. A year later, in Kiev, Likhachev boulevard was renamed into Maria Priymachenko boulevard. In the cities of Brovary, Sumy and Kramatorsk there are streets named after Maria Primachenko.

Primitivism is the art of people who have not lost a child in themselves

UNESCO declared 2009 the year of the Ukrainian artist, who worked all her life in the village of Bolotnya near Kiev. In world art, the name of Primachenko stands next to Matisse, Modigliani, Van Gogh, Pirosmani ... But she drew, like a child, wonder-animals. But she did it brilliantly ...

Mary's childhood was marred by polio. This made her not childishly serious and observant, sharpened her hearing and vision. All the objects that surrounded the girl became participants in a lively exciting game, sometimes sad, but more often - bright and festive.

“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 ...” - this is how the original artist said about herself.

Maria Primachenko invented fantastic animals. Her "Animal Series" has no analogues either in Ukrainian or in world art.

Despite the difficult fate (the artist had been walking with a crutch since the age of nine, and her husband was taken by the war), Maria Primachenko remained a tireless dreamer and a cheerful inventor all her life. She was loved by her fellow villagers, she had quite a lot of friends. “Probably, at least 300 paintings are scattered in her native village of Bolotnya,” says Natalia Zabolotnaya, “she generously gave everyone particles of her world.”

This year, Ukraine and the entire art world are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Maria Primachenko. Viktor Yushchenko signed a special decree listing a number of events up to the creation of a museum and the renaming of one of the capital's streets in honor of the artist. How did the humble grandmother from the village of Bolotnya deserve such honors?

We asked her fellow artists who were personally acquainted with Primachenko to recall the great primitive artist.

"She kept pigs, chickens, geese ... and lived from there."

I met Maria Avksentievna 15 years ago, when I came to her 85th birthday, - says a longtime fan of her work, academician of painting, famous Kiev artist Vasily Gurin.

Of course, he knew her work, because Primachenko's paintings appeared on purchases in the Union of Artists. This name was already well known by our classics, including Tatiana Yablonskaya. Her son Fyodor brought the works to Kiev. He followed in the footsteps of his mother - he also mastered the folk primitive. They bought these works at that time inexpensively, they believed that amateur art could not cost more than 300 rubles.

When we arrived for her anniversary, I was amazed that this brilliant woman lived in a simple rural hut under a thatched roof. There is a huge farm in the yard. She kept pigs, chickens, geese. They even had their own horse! From this the family lived.

When we got closer, Maria Avksentievna confessed: “All the women in the village laughed at me. I walk, they say, God knows how. And when the collective farms went, they began to complain that I sit all day on the collective farm and draw, instead of working off my workdays. " So before her fame, she lived hard. But then even high-ranking persons became interested in it: the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine Volodymyr Shcherbitsky, Mykola Zhulinsky (ex-Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine. - Ed.). The latter became a part of the house. On her business, he came to the Union of Artists together with the poet Les Tanyuk. It was they who organized her anniversary together with the Union. It was a holiday for the whole village!

Those women who once said that she was a parasite came first. They put on elegant embroidered shirts and festive scarves. An orchestra played all day under the house. Then everyone wanted to see her, but she hid in a distant room. When I entered, I was amazed at how small she seemed on the big bed, and her work hung on the walls all around. He came closer and was stunned: just like my mother Barbara!

Primachenko was very charming, but contrasting - here is a smile of joy on her face and then sadness. I immediately wanted to draw it. And later, at the Union of Artists, we made an exhibition of works by the entire Primachenko dynasty.

It was thanks to Primachenko that a telephone was installed in Bolotnya and a sewer system was made. And when Mary was buried (at the local cemetery), the procession stretched for a kilometer - from the house to the churchyard itself ...

"She drove the vodka herself"

I visited her several times, - recalls the director of the National Art Museum Anatoly Melnik.

Pani Maria gave the impression of a very cordial, hospitable person. She loved to sit at the table and pour 50 grams of vodka, which she cooked herself, for friends.

At that time I was engaged in the formation of the collection of the Khmelnytsky Museum of Contemporary Art. So she gave us 24 works in exchange for paper and gouache. She loved to donate her work to museums. I was amazed that in one of the paintings she wrote: "The world has existed for a billion years, and there has never been such a monkey" ...

Indeed, Maria Primachenko knew how to create what Nature herself could not create.

reference

Maria Primachenko was born in the village of Bolotnya, Ivankovsky district, Kiev region. According to her passport, her birthday is December 31, 1908, but she herself said that she was born on the old New Year, on Vasily, in 1909.

In the 30s, while searching for nuggets from the people, the young Primachenko was noticed by the Kiev artist Tatyana Flor. In 1936 she was invited to the experimental workshops at the Kiev Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Art. There she completed her first internship, where she learned to sculpt and paint clay products.

Maria gave birth to her only son Fedor, who, like his mother, became a folk artist. And during the Great Patriotic War, she lost her husband. After the war, Maria was forgotten for several decades, only in the 60s she was rediscovered by art critic and screenwriter Grigory Mestechkin and Moscow journalist Yury Rost (born in Kiev), whose article about Maria Primachenko in Komsomolskaya Pravda made her famous.

During her lifetime, the artist was awarded the title of Honored Art Worker, in 1966 she became a laureate of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize. Today her works are kept in private collections and museums around the world.

5 little-known facts from the life of Primachenko

1. Her mother Paraska was a recognized embroidery master and gave her gift to her daughter, who until her last days wore shirts, sewn and decorated with her own hands. Father Auxentius was a virtuoso joiner. He made yard fences in the village in the form of ancient Slavic images.
2. Maria was born a very beautiful girl, but with a terrible disease - poliomyelitis. A disabled person since childhood (one leg almost did not work, which is why she underwent three operations, all her life she wore a 7-kg prosthesis and walked with a stick), was distinguished by her seriousness and attentiveness.
3. The young artist painted her first paintings on the sand. Then I found colored clay and painted the hut. The whole village went to see this miracle, and then fellow villagers asked to decorate their houses too.
4. In August 2006, 100 of Primachenko's paintings were stolen from her son's house. Each of the stolen paintings, according to the most conservative estimate, then cost $ 5-6 thousand. Fyodor was admitted to the hospital with an acute nervous breakdown. The police immediately found out that the crime was committed with the participation of local residents. The robbers entered through the neighboring courtyard, they were well oriented in the house. As it turned out, a domestic collector ordered the theft. The paintings were soon found.
5. In the "World Encyclopedia of Naive Art" Maria Primachenko is on a par with such masters as Matisse and Modigliani. The Ukrainian artist was named the brightest representative of this style.

Maria Avksentievna Primachenko (Ukrainian Maria Oksentyivna Primachenko, sometimes Priymachenko; December 30, 1908 (January 12) 1909 - August 18, 1997) - Ukrainian folk artist. People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1988). The representative of the "folk primitive" ("naive art").

MA Primachenko was born on December 30, 1908 (January 12), 1909 in the village of Bolotnya (now the Ivankovsky district of the Kiev region of Ukraine), where she spent her entire life.

Father, Avksentiy Grigorievich, was a virtuoso carpenter, made yard fences.

Mother, Praskovya Vasilievna, was a recognized master of embroidery (Maria Avksentievna herself dressed in her own embroidered shirts).

The childhood of Maria Avksentievna was overshadowed by a terrible disease - poliomyelitis. This made her not childishly serious and observant, sharpened her hearing and vision. Maria Avksentievna endured all life's hardships with dignity and courage, including the death of her husband at the front. And her son, Fyodor Vasilievich Primachenko (1941-2008), was her student and was the people's artist of Ukraine.

“It all started like this,” the artist recalled. - Once near the hut, by the river, on a meadow decorated with flowers, I grazed geese. I drew all kinds of flowers that I saw on the sand. And then she noticed the bluish clay. I put it in the hem and painted our hut ... ”. Everyone came to see this curiosity, made by the hands of a girl. Praised. Neighbors asked to decorate their houses.

Tatiana Flora, a resident of Kiev, discovered Primachenko's talent (in the 1960s-1970s, the journalist G.A.Mestechkin organized a wide popularization of Primachenko's work). In 1936, Maria Avksentievna was invited to the experimental workshops at the Kiev Museum of Ukrainian Art. Her work became more diverse - Maria painted, embroidered, and became interested in ceramics. Her ceramic jugs and dishes from this period are kept in the State Museum of Ukrainian Folk and Decorative-Applied Arts. Akim Gerasimenko, a recognized master of Ukrainian ceramics, willingly gave Primachenko his products of various shapes, and she painted them with images of red chanterelles, terrible animals walking on strawberry stalks of blue monkeys or green crocodiles covered with flowers.

There is also information that Maria Primachenko showed her talent in the field of ceramic sculpture. Only one work in this genre has survived - "Crocodile". For participation in the exhibition of folk art in 1936, Primachenko was awarded a first degree diploma. In the future, her works were exhibited with constant success at exhibitions in Paris, Warsaw, Sofia, Montreal, Prague. In 1986 she created her Chernobyl series of paintings.

By the decision of the Kiev City Council No. 13/1068 dated January 22, 2009, the capital Likhachev Boulevard was renamed in honor of Maria Primachenko.

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Maria Primachenko (sometimes Prymachenko; 1908-1997) - Ukrainian folk artist. The representative of the "folk primitive" ("naive art").

Biography of Maria Primachenko

MA Primachenko was born on December 30 (January 12), 1909 in the village of Bolotnya (now Ivankovsky district of Kiev region of Ukraine), where she spent her whole life.

Father, Avksentiy Grigorievich, was a virtuoso carpenter, made yard fences.

Mother, Praskovya Vasilievna, was a recognized master of embroidery (Maria Avksentievna herself dressed in her own embroidered shirts).

The childhood of Maria Avksentievna was overshadowed by a terrible disease - poliomyelitis. This made her not childishly serious and observant, sharpened her hearing and vision.

Maria Avksentievna endured all life's hardships with dignity and courage, experienced the happiness of love (her husband died at the front) and the happiness of motherhood. She had a son, Fyodor, also a former People's Artist of Ukraine. He was her student (died 2008).

Primachenko's creativity

“It all started like this,” the artist recalled. - Once near the hut, by the river, on a meadow decorated with flowers, I grazed geese. I drew all kinds of flowers that I saw on the sand. And then she noticed the bluish clay. I put it in the hem and painted our hut ... ”.

Everyone came to see this curiosity, made by the hands of a girl. Praised. Neighbors asked to decorate their houses.

Tatiana Flora, a resident of Kiev, discovered Primachenko's talent (in the 1960s-1970s, the journalist G.A.Mestechkin organized a wide popularization of Primachenko's work).

In 1936, Maria Avksentievna was invited to the experimental workshops at the Kiev Museum of Ukrainian Art.

Her work became more diverse - Maria painted, embroidered, and became interested in ceramics. Her ceramic jugs and dishes from this period are kept in the State Museum of Ukrainian Folk and Decorative-Applied Arts. Akim Gerasimenko, a recognized master of Ukrainian ceramics, willingly gave Primachenko his products of various shapes, and she painted them with images of red chanterelles, terrible animals walking on strawberry stalks of blue monkeys or green crocodiles covered with flowers.

There is also information that Maria Primachenko showed her talent in the field of ceramic sculpture. Only one work in this genre has survived - "Crocodile".

For participation in the exhibition of folk art in 1936, Primachenko was awarded a first degree diploma. In the future, her works were exhibited with constant success at exhibitions in Paris, Warsaw, Sofia, Montreal, Prague.

In 1986 she created her Chernobyl series of paintings.

Naivist artist Maria Prymachenko was not naive when it came to the tragedy of the world. She did not know where her husband's grave was, and this motive is frequent in her works.

In 1971 she painted the painting "Soldiers' Graves". It can also be interpreted as a premonition of Chernobyl - it was in that year that the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with its four reactors began. So in that picture there is a forest, and in it four graves shine, similar to four suns or four huge eggs in a cut - a fiery yolk, and in it a soldier's helmet.

Priymachenko's paintings are supposedly traditionally "Ukrainian", but this is a country of dreams, not reality.

The artist has been compared to Bosch and Hitchcock, artists of apocalyptic visions.

Director Serhiy Proskurnya recalls: once the cribs came to her from Kiev, sang about "our glorious Ukraine", and Maria Oksentievna suddenly said sadly.

Maria Aksentyevna Primachenko was born in the Polesye village of Bolotne. From her mother, an embroiderer, she took over the ability to create that magical ornament, characteristic of Ukrainian craftswomen, in which, in Gogol's words, “birds come out like flowers, and flowers look like birds”. She began to create her first decorative compositions, transferring motifs of traditional wall paintings and embroidery onto cardboard and paper.

The Kiev artist Tatyana Floru, who collected samples for an exhibition of folk art in 1935, drew attention to the work of a talented rural craftswoman. From the same year, Primachenko began working in experimental workshops at the Kiev State Museum together with such artists as Tatiana Pata, Paraska Vlasenko, Natalya Vovk. Gradually, her work gains recognition. At exhibitions in Kiev, Moscow, Paris, Warsaw, Sofia, Montreal, her drawings "Black Beast", "Blue Lion", "Beast in Golden Boots", "Dog in a Cap", "Mermaids are Dancing", "Golden Berries" and dr.

When the war began, Maria Primachenko returned to her native village, sharing with her fellow villagers the difficulties of the occupation and the joy of Victory, which gave new strength for creativity.

The period of the late 50s-early 60s was especially fruitful for the artist. In 1960, during the Decade of Ukrainian Art and Literature in Moscow, her works exhibited at the exhibition of decorative and applied arts brought her great success: she was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.

In 1960-1965, the artist is working on a new cycle - "People for the Joy", which includes the works "Sunflower", "Blue Flowerpot with Flowers", "Firebird", "Dove on Kalina", "Peacock in Flowers", "Lion" and others. For this cycle, Maria Primachenko was awarded the title of laureate of the State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR TG Shevchenko.

Already in the titles of the works, the folklore and poetic basis of Primachenko's work is visible, but her drawings are not just illustrations for folk tales and songs, but original variations on their themes, intertwined with the artist's reflections on the life around her. “I love to paint how people work in the field, how young people walk, like a poppy is in bloom. I love all living things, I love to draw flowers, different birds and forest animals. I dress them in folk clothes, and they are so funny with me, they already dance ... "

Although in the works of Primachenko there is much in common with folk art - ritual figured baking, embroidery, wall paintings - her figurative system is completely individual and unique. She is an independent artist, and this is what distinguishes her from many nameless craftswomen, creators of traditional folk art. The reason for this can be seen both in the general process of individualization of folk art, which is characteristic of our time, and in the "unconventional" materials used by the artist (Whatman paper, gouache, watercolor, column brushes) - they give the motifs of ancient wall paintings easel and modern picturesque and poetic meaning.

But the main thing, perhaps, is the very nature of the artist's talent, a very special principle of decorative generalization of real forms, which makes it possible to extract a uniform core of their essence from the complexity and diversity of the concrete appearance of things. That is why the apparent simplicity of the image turns into richness and depth of content.

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So, the bouquets in Primachenko's drawings are not just still lifes and not just an ornament, but a kind of generalized image of flowers, expressing a certain structure of feelings, be it the joy of childhood or admiration for the generosity of the earth. Her "Forest Bouquet" gives rise to the memory of a forest warmed by the sun, "Flowers of my hut" - recall the tender smile of a hospitable hostess of the house.

At the end of the 60s, Primachenko came to the creation of not just fabulous, but symbolic and allegorical compositions - "The Terrible War", "He has his own milk, but he is blowing away at someone else's." These images of grief, human vices live in a terrible world, devoid of colors, the breath of life, in a world where there is no goodness and beauty. Flowers here are no longer juicy and bright; they are like shadows, ghosts of flowers, deprived of the breath of life.

The most important means of expression in Primachenko's works is color, which is not just a shell, but a bearer of the essence of an object (therefore, the viewer easily reconciles with its convention). The color is not of planes, but plastic, animated; sometimes this is achieved due to the expressiveness of color combinations. For example, in the decorative panel "Cornflowers" the contrast of green and blue-blue creates the impression of night flickering, coolness, which is intensified by flashes of red, hot, like a candle flame, "hearts" colors.

In her plot works - "The Cat on the Road", "Marusia Spinning Tow", "The Reaping Cossack and the Young Cossack" Primachenko finds an interesting compositional technique that meets the general decorative structure of her works. The drawing is divided into plans following one after another. With the seeming flatness of the image, the interaction of these plans creates a spatial effect, thanks to which numerous objects are naturally placed on the plane of the picture without loading it. This ability to find the correct compositional solution is inherent in Prymachenko by nature, as well as a sense of rhythm, plastic lines and color, harmony of the whole.

Not so long ago, the works of Primachenko appeared in front of the audience in their new quality - in illustrations for children's books, published by the Kiev publishing house "Veselka" in the early 70s. Illustrations of children's books reveal another facet of the folk artist's talent, conquer with their joyful spontaneity, closeness to the world of children's imagination, organic fusion of words and images.