VLADIMIR TRETCHIKOFF

VLADIMIR TRETCHIKOFF Biography:
Born in Siberia in 1913, Vladimir Tretchikoff was one of the most commercially successful artists of all time; believed to have earned more during his lifetime than any painter other than Picasso.

He fled with his wealthy family from the Russian Revolution to Herbin, in North China, and was orphaned there at the age of 11. He later moved to Singapore, where he held a variety of interesting jobs, including a spell working as a propaganda artist for the British Ministry of Information in 1941. At the end of the war, Tretchikoff and his wife resettled in Cape Town, South Africa, where his portraits of Asian women, and, to a lesser extent, his floral studies, rapidly brought him enormous popular acclaim around the world. The influence of the Far East and a fascination with the exotic can be seen in most of Tretchikoff's work. His figure studies generally featured members of African tribes or Asian women and he was always fascinated with eastern flowers, such as magnolias.  >>click here for more