About the Artist

Borys Gradov (Borys Otryshkin, 1908-1988) was born in Dubovskoye, a small village in the Russian Empire’s Don Cossack Host Province, in a merchant’s family. As a young man, he left his hometown to escape the tumultuous post-revolutionary rural life. In the nearest big city of Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd), he found apprentice work assisting a local photographer, from whom young Boris got to learn the trade as well.

During World War II Gradov was called to military duty, having served as a photo lab technician and an aerial survey photographer. He was awarded multiple medals for his service, including the ones "For Courage" and “For Battle Merit”. After demobilisation, Borys was commissioned to western Ukraine to work as a photojournalist for the Youth of Transcarpathia newspaper. During his Kyiv period, Borys Gradov worked at the Stalin's Tribe newspaper (later renamed Komsomol Banner), and eventually was hired by the famous Ukrayina magazine. In his premiere post, he authored countless stories and covers about Ukraine and its people for over 30 years, until he died in 1988. Among Gradov’s most celebrated works are his portraits of Maxim Gorky (1932) and Yuri Gagarin (1965).