Valeria Borisovna Larina was born April 10, 1926, in Leningrad, USSR. In 1946, Valeria Larina entered the first course of the
Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin. There she studied under
Piotr Belousov, Ivan Stepashkin, and
Alexander Zaytsev. In 1953, Valeria Larina graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a painter in
Boris Ioganson's workshop. Her peers included Mark Klionsky, Leonid Kabachek,
Izzat Klychev, Konstantin Molteninov,
Vladimir Seleznev,
Nikolai Galakhov, and other young artists. One of Larina's final works prior to her graduation was a genre painting named "Young Shipbuilders". Following her graduation, Larina participated in art exhibitions. She painted portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, still lifes, and sketches from daily life. In the 1950s she was most famous for her series of expressive portraits of steel-makers and workers from the Kirov plant in Leningrad. Later, she painted mainly portraits of females and etudes of nature. Starting in 1954, Valeria Larina was a member of the
Leningrad Union of Artists (now the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists). Valeria Borisovna Larina died in
Saint Petersburg in 2008. Her paintings are located in museums and private collections in Russia, England, Germany, France, Italy, the U.S., and other nations. ==References==