1990s Ukrainian Oil Painting of a Dacha with Lilac Tree, Signed Andrei Potapenko

Lilac in full bloom tumbles over a little summer cottage in this joyful painting by the Ukrainian artist Andrei Illich Potapenko, signed and dated 95 in the lower right corner. Behind the blossom, a whitewashed dacha with turquoise shutters sits in a sunny garden, with a painted bench, a turquoise picket fence and a flowerbed of red and yellow catching the light. The paint is laid on thickly and freely, in clean strokes of mauve, sap green, lemon and aqua, so up close the picture almost dissolves into pure colour before pulling back into focus.

Potapenko was born in 1925 in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine and trained at the Dnipropetrovsk art school. He fought in the Second World War as a volunteer, was wounded, and returned to the front until the war ended. He joined the Union of Artists of the USSR in 1964 and was named an Honoured Artist of Ukraine in 1984, and he loved to paint landscapes outdoors, directly from nature, which this one plainly was. On the back, in his own hand, is the title Na dache, At the Dacha, along with his name, the medium, the size and the date, 1995.

Painted in oil on canvas, the picture measures 35 x 63 cm, rising to 79 x 51 cm in its frame. The deep reeded gilt frame has a natural linen slip that lets the colours sing. The frame has light rubs to the gilt consistent with age, and the backing paper has a small tear along the top edge. It is strung and ready to hang.

The wide landscape shape is ideal above a sofa, a bed or a sideboard, and the soft lilac and turquoise palette brightens a north facing room all year round. Pair it with painted furniture, ticking stripes and jugs of garden flowers for a relaxed country look, or let it lift a plain white wall in a modern space.