Vadim Grigorievich Zotov
Vadim Grigorievich Zotov was born in 1936 in the village of Krasyukovka in the Postov region
From 1951 to 1956 Vadim studied miniature art at the Palekh Art School under such well-known painters as A.V. Kotukhin, F.A. Kaurtsev, I.P. Vakurov, and N.A. Pravdin. When he graduated from the School, the Palekh Art Workshops at once employed him.
Vadim Grigorievich became enchanted by Palekh art at the first time he set eyes on a Palekh article. He married a Palekhian artist Irina Livanova and became a real Palekhian.
In 1963 the painter entered the Moscow Textile Institute where he studied fabric design. He was a student of the faculty of applied arts, and in 1968 Vadim finished it with success. Zotov worked as a painter of printed cotton at the Glukhov cotton industrial complex in the town of Noginsk not far from Moscow.
The master did monumental paintings, the iconostasis for the Ilinskaya church in the village of Palekh was painted under his guidance (1990-1991). The themes of the author's art works are folklore, landscapes, and genre scenes. The best miniatures by Zotov are "Seasons", "Ivan-Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf", "Summer. Haymaking. Apiary", "The Village of Krasnoe", "Landscape", and "In Spring".
These works and many other painter's art pieces have been displayed at different exhibitions since 1968, and some of his miniatures are reserved in the State Museum of Palekh Art, Russian Folk Arts and Crafts Museum, State Russian Museum, and Ples State Historic and Architecture Art Museum-Park.
Vadim Grigorievich Zotov is a person of broad artistic outlook, who thinks in images, loves discussing art, and always tries to understand an opponent's view in disputes. These qualities attract young artists to his seminars.
No matter how collective an art form is, every talented artist occupies his own particular place in it. Zotov has chosen the important task of defending old traditions and discovering new ways of implementing icon-painting techniques in secular Palekh art. This is evident in his conversations and in his works. However, just as one of the founders of the Palekh style, Ivan Golikov, could not be squeezed into "traditions", Zotov can impress by the unusual quality of his work. At first glance it sometimes seems not to be true Palekh. But that is only how it seems. Every talent searches and finds its own place within the traditions. Zotov works slowly, but his pieces sell quickly. We can only envy those lucky ones in different parts of the world who have had the opportunity to admire Vadim Zotov's marvelous works.
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