Ovchinnikov Vladimir Afanasyevich

Artist, sculptor, set designer, one of the leading masters of “unofficial art” in Leningrad, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation (2005). He had no formal art education. He worked as a rigger at the Hermitage and as an assistant to a decorator painter at the Kirov Theatre. Since 1964, he has taken part in exhibitions in Russia, the USA, France, Germany, and Japan. He was one of the organizers of the famous exhibitions of unofficial artists at the Gaza and Nevsky cultural centres in 1974 and 1975. The artist’s works are represented in the State Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum (New York), the Rutgers Museum (New Jersey), the Art Museum of Beijing, the Marie‑Thérèse Cochin Gallery (Paris), as well as in private collections in Russia and other countries.