Fyodor Zakharov
Fyodor Zakharovich Zakharov (; ; September 5, 1919 – September 29, 1994) was a Soviet and Ukrainian painter. He was awarded the title People's Painter of Ukrainian SSR in 1978, and the Shevchenko National Prize in 1987, the highest Ukrainian award for art and literature. Life Zakharov was born on September 5, 1919, in Aleksandrovskoye rural settlement, a little village in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire (today part of Monastyrshchinsky District, Smolensk Oblast). He descended from a farming family. In 1935 he received a grant to study at the Kalinin Academy of Art in Moscow, where he finished his studies with distinction in 1941. Health problems kept Zakharov from being drafted for military service. He continued his art studies at the Surikov Academy of Art in Moscow. Zakharov was taught as an elite student by Aristarkh V. Lentulov, one of the best known representatives of the Russian avant garde. Zakharov started his career as an independent artist in 1950. This was the era of the totalitarian Soviet art, during which artistic expression was subordinated entirely to the interests of the Communist Party. Zakharov never created the so-called thematic paintings, which typically idealized the supposedly blissful existence of the