Sasha Putrya

Sasha Putrya (Oleksandra Putria) was a Ukrainian artist of Soviet nationality, born in 1977 and dead in 1989. She became known for the vast number of works she made in her short life: about 2,279 pieces, many collected in 46 albums of drawings, caricatures and poems.

The son of a painter and a music teacher, she began drawing at three. At five she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Her output went well beyond drawing: she worked in repoussé metal, embroidery, beadwork, coloured stones, woodcut, sculpture and soft toys. She also made technical drawings, with the idea of helping adults reach the Moon and build asphalt roads without cracks. Most of her work is held by the Poltava Art Museum.

As her illness worsened, she spent more and more time in hospital, where she was admired for her patience and cheerfulness. She kept painting to the end, and in her last weeks she made pictures requested by the other children on her ward. She had a strong interest in India, though she never visited, and several of her paintings show Indian themes. At her request she was buried in a sari with a small photo of the Indian film actor Mithun Chakraborty. She rests in the Central Cemetery of Poltava.

Her legacy includes more than a hundred exhibitions in ten countries up to 2005, an Austrian stamp set featuring her drawings, several documentaries and a memoir, a children's room at the Poltava Art Museum and a street in Poltava named after her.