Born in Archangelsk, Russia in 1949, Valeriy Grachov was raised under the Communist regime of Leonid Brezhnev. After attending high school in Kiev, Ukraine, he enrolled at the city’s Institute of Design and Architecture, graduating in 1976. Although he was an inspired artist, Grachov was not permitted to explore varied artistic techniques, as only socialistic realism was permitted in the Soviet Union at the time. Instead of succumbing to these rules, he traveled the work, working and living in Central Asia, the Far East, and on the islands in the Japanese Sea. While living in the USSR, he took small design and architecture orders in order to get by, but instead of painting “officious art” or becoming a dissident, he painted privately without truly attempting to illegally market his art.

Grachov currently focuses on mountain landscapes in the style of Romantic Realism. His technique varies for the different styles of work he creates. When he is painting a Realist work, he often has the piece planned out in his mind down to the smallest details, but when he is creating something abstract, he starts with a certain color palette, while “the rest fully depends on spontaneity.” When he began exploring art in a more experimental way, Grachov created purely abstract art, landscapes, and what he calls airplane landscapes, “when the point of view is so high and there is no Earth in the field of vision and there are only sky and play of clouds on the canvas.” No matter what kind of painting he creates, Grachov’s work reflects his unique style and experience.