The Serhii Prytula Charity Foundation, together with the Dukat Auction House, held a charity auction of Maria Prymachenko’s 1990 painting “Flowers Grew Near the Fourth Block” from a private collection.
Ihor Ponamarchuk—a volunteer driver for the Prytula штаб and, in peacetime, an art collector—donated the painting from his family collection to the Foundation. Daria Dobriian, director of the private museum Spiritual Treasures of Ukraine and Ihor’s wife, noted that their family would never have sold the work if not for the war. Today, the efforts of professionals across all sectors of society must be directed toward supporting the army in its fight against Russia.
Maria Prymachenko’s family supported the charity auction and waived royalties from the sale of the painting in favor of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This particular work was also chosen for its symbolic title—“Flowers Grew Near the Fourth Block.” During the attempted advance on Kyiv from the north, Russian forces entered the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and dug trenches in the Red Forest and near the fourth reactor, where the soil remained radioactive. Russian troops also shelled the local history museum in Ivankiv, in the Kyiv region, which housed works by Maria Prymachenko.