A self-taught artist (1909–1997) born to humble means, Prymachenko earned fame in her lifetime for dazzlingly colorful and wildly inventive scenes of animals—lions, birds, horses, and other beasts—covered in riotously hued, almost psychedelic patterns. She might just be Ukraine’s most beloved artist; her likeness has appeared on stamps and even the country’s coinage.
Pablo Picasso once said, after visiting a Prymachenko exhibition in Paris,"I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian."