Liubov Panchenko: Recovery

Liubov Panchenko’s Art album is the first and, so far, only publication of her artworks, which returns her name to Ukrainian Art after decades of oblivion. Only thanks to the publications in “Radianska zhinka” (Soviet Woman) magazine back in the 1960s and -70s of her embroidery sketches and fashion designs, which carried expressively Ukrainian folk motifs, the Ukrainian public had a glimpse at her broad talent.

Being a very gifted designer Liubov Panchenko has been working in different art genres. Among her works are lyrical watercolors, linocuts, ornamental fantasy wall paintings, and unparalleled collages made from fabric patches. Panchenko’s entire oeuvre was conspicuously Ukrainian in its very essence, something that was judged by the Communist regime as “bourgeois nationalistic” and, therefore, heavily censored and restricted. That is why Liubov Panchenko had no personal exhibitions or publications during Soviet times.

Currently, most of Panchenko’s artworks are in the collection of Museum of Shistdesiatnytstvo — Ukrainian Sixties (a political art movement during Khrushchev Thaw times in the 1960s).