fantasy beast in many colours — Maria Prymachenko, Eared beast grasped a crustacean, 1983 Photo: © Maria Prymachenko Family Fundation. Courtesy The National Museum of Decorative Art of Ukraine

The Fantastic and Horrific

Maria Prymachenko and works from the Moderna Museet Collection

21.9 2024 – 30.3 2025

Malmö

The collection

Maria Prymachenko (1909–1997) is one of Ukraine’s best-known and most beloved artists. Her motifs have appeared on postage stamps, and a planetoid has been named after her. The stylized yet playful patterns have their roots in folk embroidery and traditional craftsmanship.

Participating artists: Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Lena Cronqvist, Lourdes Fernandez, Susanna Marcus Jablonski, Asger Jorn, Runo Lagomarsino, Lou Laurin-Lam, Egon Möller-Nielsen, Amelia Peláez del Casal, Pablo Picasso, Lars Pirak, Niki de Saint Phalle, Maria Prymachenko, Max Walter Swanberg, Adja Yunkers.

In the exhibition, Maria Prymachenko’s paintings are displayed alongside works from the Moderna Museet’s 20th-century collection and pieces by two contemporary artists, Runo Lagomarsino and Susanna Marcus Jablonski. Artists such as Marc Chagall, Egon Möller-Nielsen, Niki de Saint Phalle, Lou Laurin-Lam, and Pablo Picasso enhance the presence of myth, metamorphosis, and storytelling. Together, these works form a vibrant elegy.

Paintings on paper became Maria Prymachenko’s primary mode of expression, and now over 40 of her works created over 50 years are being showcased. She painted lush flowers, fantastical creatures, and mixed reality with fantasy, everyday life with festivity. Her images bear traces of sorrow and pain.

The exhibition is anchored in the fact that both Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Maria Prymachenko participated in the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. There, Picasso displayed his painting “Guernica”, which, like many of Prymachenko’s works, has become a symbol of peace. Several of the works Prymachenko exhibited in 1937 are included in this exhibition.

Besides war, Prymachenko also experienced famine and disaster. She was born in Bolotnya, in the Polesia region, 50 km from Chernobyl, which has become synonymous with nuclear catastrophe. She comments on the world in her titles, prays for peace, curses war, and addresses individuals and politicians, as in her 1986 work titled: “Mister Reagan, look at this picture and understand how heavy and burdensome and foolish the atom is. Take a look and make peace with us so there will be peace on Earth.”

A few days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the museum in Prymahenko’s hometown of Ivankiv was targeted, and several of her paintings were destroyed. The attack illustrates how art is used in warfare and as a means in the strategy to destroy a people and a culture.

Maria Prymachenko’s works are on loan from the National Museum of Decorative Art of Ukraine. All use of images is permitted by the foundation Creative Heritage of Maria Prymachenko Family.