Vladimir Tretchikoff
| Vladimir Tretchikoff | |
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| Born |
Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff December 26, 1913 Petropavl, Russia, now Kazakhstan |
| Died | August 26, 2006 (aged 92) Cape Town, South Africa |
| Known for | Painting |
| Notable work | Chinese Girl; The Dying Swan; Miss Wong; Lady from Orient; Lost Orchid; Weeping Rose; Balinese Girl |
Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff (Владимир Григорьевич Трeтчиков, 26 December [O.S. 13 December] 1913, Petropavlovsk, Russian Empire, now Petropavl in Kazakhstan – 26 August 2006, Cape Town, South Africa) was one of the most commercially successful artists of all time - his painting Chinese Girl (popularly known as "The Green Lady") is one of the best selling art prints of the twentieth century.
Tretchikoff was a self-taught artist who painted realistic figures, portraits, still life and animals, with subjects often inspired by his early life in China, Singapore and Indonesia, and later life in South Africa. His work was immensely popular with the general public, but is often seen by art critics as the epitome of kitsch (indeed, he was nicknamed the "King of Kitsch"). He worked in oil, watercolour, ink, charcoal and pencil but is best known for his reproduction prints which sold worldwide in huge numbers. According to his biographer Boris Gorelik, writing in Incredible Tretchikoff, the reproductions were so popular that it was rumoured that Tretchikoff was the world's richest artist after Picasso.
Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff was the youngest of eight children in a well-to-do family in Petropavlovsk (now Petropavl), a town in Siberia. Upon the Russian Revolution in 1917, the family abandoned their property and fled to Harbin, a city in China with a large Russian presence. Tretchikoff worked as a scene painter at the city's Russian opera house, and went to school until the age of 16. This explains why much of his later work is designed to be seen from a distance with an inherent theatricality. A year previously, he was commissioned to paint portraits for the boardroom of the Chinese-Eastern Railway, and with the money from this commission he joined the community of Shanghai Russians.
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