Zaretskyi was a master of both easel and monumental painting. He was often called the Ukrainian Klimt, and also considered Gustav Klimt and Taras Shevchenko his spiritual fathers.
In search of his own style, Zaretskyi traveled through the Donbas region and rural villages, creating a cycle of genre paintings about miners and collective farm life. As a monumental painter, he decorated buildings in Kyiv, Mariupol, and Donetsk with mosaics.
He was a member of the Kyiv Creative Youth Club Suchasnyk, whose participants sought to develop Ukrainian culture, experiment with innovative artistic forms, and revive the memory of the Executed Renaissance poets. The Club organized literary evenings, performances, debates, and trips across Ukraine to study and preserve architectural monuments. For a time, Zaretskyi headed the Club. In 1965, during the first arrests of dissidents, Zaretskyi and his wife, artist Alla Horska — also a Club member — signed the “Letter of the 139” condemning the repressions. In retaliation, the KGB orchestrated the murder of Horska and Zaretskyi’s father. These events left a profound mark on the artist, who lived the rest of his life fearing assassination. Only in 2008 were the case files declassified, proving that the killings were premeditated and carried out by the authorities.
After his second marriage to Maya, the daughter of his teacher Serhii Hryhoriev, Zaretskyi withdrew from the dissident movement. Settling in Koncha-Ozerna near Kyiv, he opened his own drawing school.
He developed an educational system called Reflections by the Canvas. Zaretskyi also worked on designs of theaters in Ivano-Frankivsk, Simferopol, and Sumy, as well as reception halls for the embassies of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in Kyiv.
In the 1980s, Zaretskyi discovered the art of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, which transformed his own creative path. He developed a unique style, which he called Ukrainian Neo-Secession, and in doing so revolutionized Ukrainian art.
He participated in republican, All-Union, and international exhibitions (Berlin, Budapest). His legacy also includes concise memoirs, notes, essays, and correspondence, published in the early 1990s. In 2009, there were published a separate book — Artist Victor Zaretskyi. In Search of Roots.
The National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture and the Union of Artists of Ukraine established the Victor Zaretskyi Prize for young artists. His works are preserved in museums across Ukraine and abroad.