Later, the tradition of “mal'ovky” (мальовки) arose, in which paintings made in advance by a master on paper could be used to decorate house walls without a painter needing to visit them in person.

There are also examples of 18th century religious icons from the Dnipro region that have floral ornamentation which could also be considered an ancestor of the modern Petrikivka style.

[3] The oldest Ukrainian wall paintings with floral ornaments date from the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in the Dnipropetrovsk, Sloboda, Podillia, and Uman’ regions,[4] and they likely have a relationship or common origin with the Petrykivka style.

[5] From the time of the New Sich in the mid-1700s until the middle of the nineteenth century, these lands were primarily populated by settlers from the Poltava and Sloboda regions, and it is possible that these migrants brought this painting tradition to Petrykivka.

[4] No detailed historical references to Petrykivka painting exist before the beginning of the 20th century, when the ethnographer Dmytro Yavornytsky took an interest in it, and had Yevhenia Evenbakh, one of his students, make copies and collect samples (including murals) in two expeditions in 1911 and 1913.

Exhibitions by Petrykivka artists took place in 1935 and 1936 in Kyiv, Leningrad, and Moscow, and featured works by Tatiana Pata, Nadia Bilokin', Yaryna Pylypenko, Hanna Isaiev, Vasyl’ Vovk, and Ganna Pavlenko.

The main instructor was Tatiana Pata, who taught an entire generation of artists who would go on to establish Petrykivka painting as a contemporary art form.

[7] Tatiana Pata is often considered to be the founder of the Petrykivka school of painting, although in reality she was only continuing a tradition which she had learned from her grandmother.

Porcelain decoration in the Petrykivka style was developed further in 1944 by the Pavlenko sisters and Vira Klymenko-Zhukov at the Kyiv Experimental Ceramic Art Factory [12] [13].

[8][9] Porcelain vases personally decorated by Marfa Tymchenko were given as gifts by Soviet leaders to foreign dignitaries, including Richard Nixon, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and Josip Broz Tito.

Most products of the factory, particularly boxes and dishes, were made of pressed sawdust, which were covered in black paint, decorated, and then varnished.

[7][16][9] A series of albums of Petrykivka painting reproductions edited by the noted art historians Natalia Hlukhen’ka and Borys Butnyk-Sivers'kyi were published in the 1960s and ‘70s.

In addition to Panko, the Workshop included the artists Hanna Isaieva, Nadia Shulyk, Nina Turchyn, Andrii Pikush, Maria Pikush, Tetiana Har’kava, Valentyna Deka, Lidia Bulavin, Maria Yanenko, Natalia Statyva-Zharko, Valentyna Panko, and Halyna Nazarenko.

In other cases, they are based on common garden flowers (e.g. dahlias, asters, tulips, roses), wildflowers (e.g. camomile, cornflower), and other plants (such as vibernum berries, strawberries, and grapes).

For some elements, such as berries, artists will use their finger to apply the paint, resulting in a characteristic round shape that is light in the center and has a darker “ring" at its edge.

[21] Petrykivka painting makes use of four characteristic brush strokes: Pigments were traditionally extracted from herbs, leaves, berries and flowers using specific preparation methods.

The painting tools themselves also were of natural origin: brushes were made from tree shoots, stems of marsh grasses (especially rushes and cattails), and cat hair.

Largely thanks to the work of Dmytro Yavornytsky, the names of Petrykivka masters of the early 20th century (born in the 1880s and 1890s) were recorded, such as Tatiana Pata, Nadia Bilokin', Yaryna Pylypenko, and Paraska Pavlenko.

These include: Fedir Panko, Vasyl' Sokolenko, Marfa Tymchenko, Vira Klymenko (later Klymenko-Zhukova) Pelahia Hlushchenko, Yavdokha (Evdokia) Kliupa, Maria Shyshat'ska, Oleksandra Pikush, Ivan Zavhorodniy, Halyna Prudnikova (Zavhorodnia), Nadia Shulyk, Zoia Kudish, Vekla Kucherenko (Pata), Hanna Danyleiko, Nadia Pikush, and others.

[7][9] The vast majority of the next generation studied Petrykivka painting under Fedir Panko and/or Vasyl' Sokolenko, as well as in some cases with one of the other master artists mentioned above.

These include: Volodymyr Hlushchenko, Nina Turchyn (Shyshats’ka), Tamara Kudish, Nina Shulyk, Vira Tezyk, Anatolii Chernus'kyi, Nina Chernus’ka, Andrii Pikush, Maria Pikush, Uliana Skliar, Valentyna Panko, Valentyna Deka (Statyva), Lidia Bulavin (Statyva), Maria Yanenko (Statyva), Natalia Statyva-Zharko, Halyna Nazarenko, Tatiana Har'kava (Lapshyn), Liudmyla Horbulia, Olena Zinchuk, Yulia Nahai, Yaryna Nazarenko, Serhii Dreshpak, Valentyna Khomenko, Nina Borodina, Kateryna Tymoshenko, Tamara Teslenko, Natalia Kaliuha, Maria Kurin'ka (Bel’mas), Iryna Kibets', Olena Yarmoliuk, Olena Skytsiuk (daughter of Marfa Tymchenko), and others.

[7][16][9][23] Additional significant artists of this generation include Valentyna Karpets’-Yermolaieva, Valentyna Milenko, Natalia Rybak, Liana Skliar, Tatiana Pata (Skliar), Tamara Vakulenko (Samars'ka), Oleksandr Vakulenko, Viktoriya Tymoshenko, Mykola Deka, Svitlana Bilenko, Natalia Maliarchuk, Volodymyr Padun, and others.