Vladimir Fedorovich Chekalov was born July 6, 1922, in the village of Novaya-Vyaltsevo, Sologalich county of Kostroma Province in the Soviet Russia. In 1926 his family moved to Leningrad. In 1936, Vladimir Chekalov went to the
Secondary Art School at the All-Russian Academy of Arts. His teachers included noted art educators Pavel Naumov,
Alexander Zaitsev,
Samuil Nevelshtein, and
Mikhail Natarevich. In July 1941, Vladimir Chekalov was drafted into the
Red Army and took part in the
Great Patriotic War. As a sapper, he participated in the
Battle of Stalingrad; he was wounded and marked by military awards. In 1944–1945, he took part in the liberation of the Nazi occupation of Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Austria as a part of the
3rd Ukrainian Front. During the war, he lost all of his family: his parents died in the
siege of Leningrad, two elder brothers were killed at the front. After demobilization in October 1946, Vladimir Chekalov entered the first course offered by the Department of Painting at the
Repin Institute of Arts. There he studied under
Alexander Zaytsev,
Boris Fogel,
Genrikh Pavlovsky, Lija Ostrova,
Semion Abugov, Mikhail Platunov, and
Joseph Serebriany. In 1952, Vladimir Chekalov graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a painter in
Rudolf Frentz's workshop, together with Sergei Babkov, Leonid Baykov,
Irina Baldina, Dmitry Beliaev,
Abram Grushko,
Marina Kozlovskaya,
Boris Korneev,
Elena Kostenko,
Oleg Lomakin, Piotr Fomin,
Boris Lavrenko, and other young artists. His graduation work was a genre painting named
Soldier Kitchen, devoted to the life in a town newly liberated from
Nazi Germany. At the end of 1952, Vladimir Chekalov's graduation work was exhibited in Moscow at the All-Union Exhibition of graduation works of students from art institutes. In February 1953, the magazine
Soviet Union placed a full-page spread color reproductions of paintings and an article about the author that brought the young artist to fame. Vladimir Chekalov participated in art exhibitions since 1952, mainly working on battle paintings and genre compositions. Much of his works depicted a Russian soldier. His works in the 1950s and 1960s included
Countrymen,
News from the Motherland,
On a halt. In Bulgaria,
Fight the Black Sea Fleet sailors at the Eltigen. Much of his works in this time period depicted a Russian soldier and employed the soldier's heroism as the main theme. Vladimir Chekalov aksi painted a large number of life sketches, many of which are examples of realistic painting. From the late 1950s through the 1960s, Vladimir Chekalov partook in creative journey to the Crimea, working in the town of Old Ladoga at the Academic dacha. He spent a lot of time with landscape paintings, with a focus of the color, and the state of lighting and surrounding air. Since 1953, Vladimir Chekalov was a member of the
Leningrad Union of Artists. In the 1970s and 1980s, he taught at art school for deaf children in
Pavlovsk, near Leningrad. Vladimir Fedorovich Chekalov died in
Saint Petersburg in 1992. His paintings now reside in art museums and private collections in Russia, France, England, Germany, Italy, the United States, and others. ==Honours and awards==