Alexander Shilov is a contemporary Russian artist who has sought worldwide fame. He is known as a portrait master. Art critics often call him a living classic of Russian realism. For half a century of active work, Shilov created a unique gallery of portraits of famous contemporaries.
Biography: childhood and youth
Alexander Maksovich Shilov was born on October 6, 1943 in Moscow. His childhood years fell on the difficult post-war time. When Alexander was 15 years old, he lost his father. The upbringing of the future artist and his younger brother Sergey was dealt with by a mother and two grandmothers.
The family lived very poorly. Mother worked in kindergarten, and the teacher’s salary was hardly enough for basic necessities. Shilov spent his childhood and youth in communal apartments. First, on Sadovo-Samotechnaya Street, and then in Likhovy Lane. A family of five people huddled in one room with an area of 13 "squares".
Shilov's younger brother at the age of 10 received an award at the children's drawing competition held in Austria. This inspired Alexander, who also loved to draw. He decided to join the painting circle of the House of Pioneers of the Timiryazevsky district of the capital. Soon, his younger brother quit painting. Alexander was so keen on him that he went to a circle in two shifts.
At 16, Shilov transferred to a school for working youth, because the family was sorely lacking money. At first, he worked as a laboratory assistant in a polyclinic of the air force. Soon Shilov got a job as a loader. First to the furniture factory, and then to the winery, because they paid more. After work, Alexander was engaged in his favorite business - drawing.
In 1968, Shilov, on the third attempt, became a student at the V.I. Surikov Moscow Art Institute. At the same time, he begins to participate in various exhibitions of young artists.
Creation
Shilov received the first fee for his work during his student years. Then he worked part time in the church by writing icons.
One day, Alexander met cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov, who asked to paint portraits of his colleagues. Soon Shilov won the Lenin Komsomol Prize. And so began his career as a portrait painter.
In 1976, he became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, which in those years was very prestigious. Two years later, his first solo exhibition was held in Moscow.
In 1997, the art gallery of Alexander Shilov was opened. It is located in the Znamensky Lane of the capital, not far from the Kremlin.
