Lyubov Panchenko is a living legend of Ukrainian national art. She was born in 1938 in a village near Kyiv. Her parents never approved of her passion for drawing. As a child, Lyuba was slapped on the hands if she took a pencil. The girl did not receive help from her family when she was studying at an art college, so she ate poorly and her health suffered.

Panchenko found her true calling by becoming a fashion designer. She created sketches of clothes, decorative paintings, fabric applications, graphics, and paintings. The embroidery designs by Lyubov Panchenko were published by the main women's magazine of Ukraine at the time, "Soviet Woman." These patterns were then copied by masters throughout the country.

She always supported the Ukrainian language and culture. Panchenko painted pysanky (easter eggs), embroidered national costumes for choirs, and raised money to help political prisoners serving sentences for "Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda." With her participation, the tradition of Christmas caroling and Ukrainian vertep (nativity scene) was revived in Kyiv.

In 1964, Alla Horska, Lyudmyla Semykina, and Halyna Sevruk created a stained glass window "Shevchenko. Mother" at the Kyiv University. Around the same time, Panchenko made sketches of Ukrainian "rushnyk" (towels embroidered with national symbols) and decorated the walls of the Taras Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv.

In all of Panchenko's works, regardless of the medium, there are Ukrainian motifs. She knows folk art well and relies on it in her own work. In particular, she intertwines national ornaments in drawings and clothing design.

The fate of Lyubov has been dramatic. In Soviet times, her works were not exhibited nor published. She only survived by making embroidery. Today, the artist's works can be seen in the private collections of her friends as well as in the Museum of the Sixtiers in Kyiv.