Владимир Волегов
Vladimir Volegov was born on December 19, 1957, in Khabarovsk, Russian Federation. When he was two years old, his mother abandoned his father, took her son and moved to Sverdlovsk (formerly, Yekaterinburg). From then on, the family had often relocated from one place to another. The mother wanted Vladimir to become a doctor, but he had a strongly pronounced desire to paint.
While at school, Volegov's teachers often asked him to help create visual aids, and he earned his first money for drawing the slogan "Long Live the First of May!" when he was 13.
At the age of 14, he started to paint 3 m cinema posters, which later often added something special to the youth parties. In the city of Krivoi Rog, Vladimir entered an arts school, and during his time there, he discovered the art of many classical painters. The works by Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov had a particular effect on him.
In 1980, Vladimir Volegov entered the School of Graphics at Lvov Institute of Printing Art (now the Ukrainian Academy of Printing). At the entrance exam, he painted an illustration to the novel The Young Guard. The Admission Committee, having seen Vladimir’s work, unanimously made a decision about his admission, even though his Literature and the History of CPSU exam results were far from brilliant.
Vladimir Volegov became the head of SPLAV artistic association in 1982, in Krivoi Rog. In 1986, he often visited Moscow, participated in international poster exhibitions. In those very days, he visited the exhibition of Andreas Zorn’s works, which had a significant influence on him.
In 1988, he moved to Moscow in order to achieve his artistic potential. He started with painting portraits in Arbat, while at the same time he was looking for work. That was when his first contacts with publishing houses, advertising and record companies were established. They willingly employed him. With the emergence and development of digital technologies, Volegov learned computer painting. He painted posters, covers for vinyl and CD albums, worked with advertising agencies for periodicals and street posters advertising. Throughout all that time, he never ceased to paint. The confused and hectic years of 1990-2000 were full of commercial orders, comic books, making sketches for promotional items. In order to survive, Volegov accepted all the offers that came along.
Volegov started travelling to Europe in 1990, earning his living by painting portraits in the streets of Barcelona, Berlin, Vienna and other European cities. For 10 years, he participated in the Summer Portrait project in the Austrian town of Wels. Having seen his works on the vinyl and CD album covers he made for show business projects, Russian show business celebrities started making orders for painted portraits.
In 1992, during his summer work as a contracted painter in the park of Gardaland, Italy, in one of the local markets, he purchased a book with Giovanni Boldini’s pictorial reproductions, which impressed, amazed and inspired him.
When he saw the impressionists’ originals in the Musée d'Orsay, he started to spend more time on painting and never stopped working. At the beginning of 2000, Vladimir created a web page with his commercial and artistic works. It was through that page, that his art manager found him, and in 2004, Vladimir signed a long-term contract with Soho Editions, New York, United States. Volegov discovered the names of John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla, adopted the style of romantic realism and started to paint in that manner.
He started his successful cooperation with Galeries Bartoux in France as well as with art galleries in the USA, Italy and Sweden in 2007.
In 2011, while Volegov was working on a 3D project, an idea of creating 3D dolls dawned on him. He set up the www.volegovdolls.com web page and took part in the exhibitions in Paris (Doll Expo 2012), in Barcelona (Doll Show 2012), in New York (Art Expo New York 2012), in which both his paintings and dolls were a tremendous success. Volegov worked on the inflow of private orders for portraits while simultaneously pursuing his artistic endeavours, the main theme of which was depicting women and children. Besides, Volegov created videos dedicated to the process of painting creation, and has composed music to them.
Vladimir Volegov has started to conduct video tutorials in figurative oil painting since 2015 and, after his followers’ persistent requests, he has created a tutorial DVD.
Vladimir Volegov became a member of SPLAV artistic association in 1982.
In his childhood, Vladimir Volegov was remarkably diligent and observant.
Vladimir Volegov married in 1999. After seven years of marriage, in 2006, Vladimir and his wife, Ekaterina, moved to Spain. And in that same year, their son Anton was born.
