Igor Ponamarchuk doctor-cardiologist and man which founded the Museum of Spiritual Treasures of Ukraine
The only private museum of Ukrainian Icons was founded in the middle 1990-ies by Igor Ponamarchuk - a doctor-cardiologist, businessman and patron of art. For many years he collected and restored many Ukrainian icons that would otherwise be destroyed and forgotten. The exhibition represents about 300 icons of the 15th - beginnings of 20th cc. 100 different widespread iconographic subjects are reflected in these icons. The most popular are the images of the Virgin Mary, Holy Trinity, The Saviour, The Virgin and St. John the Forerunner, also many icons depict the Holy Family and the Life of the Saints. Most spread is the images of St. Barbara, St. Katherine and St. Nickolas. A big hall represents the exhibition of the paintings of famous village decorative folk art painter Maria Primachenko (1908-1997). These canvases seem to absorb the age-old traditions of many generations of Ukrainian master-craftsmen who, from the depths of the centuries, have brought their understanding of good and evil, of ugliness and beauty. The works of Primachenko can be subdivided into thematic, symbolic and ornamental pieces; she developed a style of her own. She was right-handed, but she painted all her pictures with her left hand. She might have instinctively felt that this world and the world of her imagination did not overlap. Picasso once said after visiting a Primachenko exhibition in Paris:”I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian”. The year 2009 was announced by UNESCO the year of Maria Primachenko.
