UKRAINE'S FLOWER ARTIST

 

Another Ukrainian folk artist that Picasso enjoyed was  KATERYNA VASYLIVNA BILOKUR.  "If we had an artist of this level, we would make the whole world talk about her.”

Born in 1900, in the village of Bohdanivka, near the capital,  she had  an unpromising start,  but her works became known in the late 1930s and 1940s for their interest in nature. She was named People's Artist of Ukraine.

At the age of 6 Kateryna learned to read, though her parents decided not to send her to school to save money on shoes and clothes. 

From early childhood she  wanted to paint. And despite the fact that it was impossible to get either paints or paper in her village, she made homemade brushes of twigs and scraps of wool, and painted on pieces of canvas she took from her mother, or on the tablets she found from her father.

She envied her younger brother, who was sent to  school — for he had notebooks! She started drawing at a young age, though her parents frowned upon this "hobby" and would not let her do it. Kateryna continued drawing secretly, using old rags and coal.

… wherever I go, whatever I do - I have an image in my head that I simply have to draw, it follows me... I'm offended by the Nature, it was cruel to me, by giving me this enormous love to holy drawing, and then took away any chance to create this marvelous work to the whole wide extent of my talent!"

She tried several times for training in art schools, but was not accepted. She continued to paint, and the resistance of her parents persisted. In 1934, driven to despair by the persecution of her mother, she tried to drown herself in the local river. 

Kateryna’s feet were affected by the icy cold water and  she remained disabled for the rest of her life.  Only after the suicide attempt did her mother allow her to paint and did not force her to marry, 

 Kateryna was an attractive girl and she had enough suitors in her native village, but none of them understood her passion for painting. The grooms were surprised and demanded she leave her creative dreams. Kateryna was in no hurry to get married. 

Already in her adulthood, she felt loneliness, she really wanted to share her joys and sorrows with a loved one, but they did not understand her in the village. She left her thoughts and feelings in her letters to Kyiv art critics, with whom she corresponded, and in her autobiography. All her lines are imbued with lyricism and sincere credulity.

 

Kateryna became famous for her flower compositions. All her works are distinguished by meticulous detail. In winter, she painted flowers from memory, but in spring and summer she worked both in the field and in the garden and would even walk 30 km away to the neighboring Pyriatyn forest to draw lilies of the valley.

The artist is known to never pick flowers. She said: "A plucked flower is like a lost destiny." Maybe that’s why her lively bouquets with peonies, daisies, roses, mallows, lilies have a special magic.


"Fate is testing those who dare to go towards a great goal, but no one will catch the courageous, they stubbornly and boldly go to their intended goal with clenched hands. And eventually fate rewards them a hundredfold and reveals all the secrets of truly beautiful and incomparable art to them."