Danchenko was deeply interested in the history of his native people, which explains his focus on folk and epic themes. He mastered the complex technique of etching and created dynamic, multi-figure, fantastical compositions. His works are distinguished by precise, expressive drawing, a refined sense of line and form, a deep understanding of the character and essence of historical events, and carefully conceived book illustrations.
Through his series of etchings on the Ukrainian people’s liberation struggle of 1648–1654, Danchenko established himself as a talented graphic artist in Ukrainian art. In his historical portrait series, he depicted leaders of the Ukrainian people’s fight for national and social liberation in the 16th–18th centuries, heroes of the revolutionary and civil war years, and figures of the Second World War.
Among Danchenko’s most notable works are the etching series The Ukrainian People’s Liberation War of 1648–1654, Peoples of the World, Be Vigilant, a triptych based on Taras Shevchenko’s poem The Dream (Son), illustrations for Shevchenko’s Kobzar, National Heroes of Ukraine, illustrations for Ilchenko’s There Is No End to the Cossack Line, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and Kotliarevsky’s Eneida. His final works, left unfinished due to illness, were illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, for which he completed 33 preparatory drawings and 7 etchings dedicated to the first part, Inferno.
In 2007, the Canadian historian Andrew Colin Gow (University of Alberta, Edmonton) published the book Brill, in which he refers to Oleksandr Danchenko as the creator of a significant etching series “…whose title recalls Deregus’s 1946 series The Liberation War of the Ukrainian People (1648–1654).”
Danchenko participated in republican, all-Union, and international exhibitions. His works are held in the National Art Museum of Ukraine and in over fifty museum collections worldwide. In November 2021, the house in Dnipro where Danchenko lived from 1931 to 1948 was designated as a cultural heritage site.