Alexander Shilov is a contemporary Russian artist who has found worldwide fame. He is known as a master of portraiture. 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 adolescence
Alexander Maksovich Shilov was born on October 6, 1943 in Moscow. His childhood years fell on a difficult post-war period. When Alexander was 15 years old, he lost his father. A mother and two grandmothers were involved in the upbringing of the future artist and his younger brother Sergei.
The family lived very poorly. The mother worked in a kindergarten, and the teacher's salary was barely enough for basic necessities. All of Shilov's childhood and adolescence were spent in communal apartments. First on Sadovo-Samotechnaya street, and then in Likhovy lane. The family, consisting 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 a children's drawing competition held in Austria. This inspired Alexander, who also loved to paint. He decided to enroll in the painting club of the House of Pioneers of the Timiryazevsky district of the capital. Soon, his younger brother gave up painting. Alexander was so carried away by him that he went to a circle in two shifts.
At the age of 16, Shilov transferred to a school for working youth, since the family was sorely lacking money. At first, he worked as a laboratory assistant at an air force clinic. Soon Shilov got a job as a loader. First to a furniture factory, and then to a winery, because they paid more there. After work, Alexander did his favorite thing - drawing.
In 1968, Shilov, on the third attempt, became a student at the V. I. Surikov Moscow Art Institute. At the same time, he began to participate in various exhibitions of young artists.
Creation
Shilov received his first fee for his work during his student days. Then he worked part-time in the church by painting icons.
Once Alexander met the cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov, who asked him to paint portraits of his colleagues. Soon Shilov became a laureate of 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 was very prestigious in those years. Two years later, his first personal exhibition took place in Moscow.
In 1997, the picture gallery of Alexander Shilov was opened. It is located in Znamensky Lane of the capital, not far from the Kremlin.
Personal life
Behind Alexander Shilov's shoulders are two official marriages. The first wife, Svetlana Folomeeva, gave birth to the artist's son Alexander in 1974. He followed in his father's footsteps. Only, unlike Shilov Sr., he chose the genre of landscape.
In 1977 the artist married Anna Yalpakh for the second time. In this marriage, Shilov had a daughter, Maria. At 17, she died of sarcoma. Shilov was very upset by the loss of his daughter. In 1999, he divorced his second wife.
In 1997, Shilov had a daughter, Ekaterina, from his mistress Yulia Volchenkova. When the girl was four years old, he stopped communicating with her.
