Igor Smirnov’s father was also a painter. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts, he studied at the faculty of Engineering at the Naval Academy. He worked for years as a restorer at a museum in St. Petersburg. In the early eighties he joined the nonconformist artists. Between 1982 and 1988 he was a regular participant of nonconformist exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Germany. With the help of American deputy secretary of state for foreign affairs John Whitehead, he moved to California in the United States in 1987, where he presently lives and works. He developed a kind of symbolic realism in his works. His graphic compositions of playful lines and vivid colours can be found in the collections of several American museums. Together with Sergei Sutov and Timur Novikov, he was member of the Mayakovsky’s Friends Club in the eighties. This painting adorned the club’s entrance. The geometric, simple composition is obviously a tribute to Mayakovsky and the Russian avant-garde. At the same time, according to the artist, its style was also influenced by Picasso’s black contour compositions.