“I draw and paint as I see and want. I enthuse and delight over a flower, fruit, lake, child’s face, window of a beautiful landscape, without playing about, and as my soul dictates,” said Aleksandr Igonin to whom artistic fulfilment was the means and form of being. Despite having a progressive eye disease in his final years, the artist did not put the brush down but continued to intuitively convey the life forms and phenomena of the diverse world – be they human beings, the nature, sky or the earth. “This display is the first commemorative exhibition dedicated to the one-time members of the Russian Artists Association in Estonia whose creations continue to live and whose lives have had an impact on many of their disciples,” says the chairman of the association, Aleksei Kornilov. “We are also planning exhibitions on Juri Dubov, Vladislav Stanishevsky and others.”

The artist and educator, who was well known in Estonia and beyond, was born in 1939 in Leningrad; however his life was connected with Estonia. He finished secondary school and the Estonian State Art Institute in Tallinn. From the 1960s, Igonin lived in East-Viru County. In 1967–1968 he taught arts at Kohtla-Järve Boarding School and in 1970–1980 at Kohtla-Järve Children’s Art School. Working as the head artist of Kohtla-Järve in 1984–1994, he left his artistic impression on the oil-shale capital. In 1998–2006, he was teaching again at Kohtla-Järve School of Arts and Jõhvi Art School. He received the Kohtla-Järve lifetime’s work award in culture (2003), a letter of appreciation from the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Estonia (2009), and the title of the cultural pearl of East-Viru County art from the Cultural Endowment of Estonia (2009). During his creative years his works were displayed, in addition to Estonia, in Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Germany; many of his works are included in the permanent exposition in the Oil-Shale Museum in the home region of the artist.