Vasilii Sitnikov was born in 1915 in the village of Rakhitino, near Lipetsk. He never received formal artistic training but worked for many years as an assistant in the Surikov Institute of Art in Moscow. He belongs to the first generation of Moscow nonconformists and after Stalin’s death he established his own school of art dedicated to studying the Postimpressionist traditions. He took great interest in the study of art history and collected numerous works on the subject.
Sitnikov’s artistic method is original and easily recognizable. The figures in his landscapes and nudes are always submerged into a misty world that partially dissolves them and creates an atmosphere of mystery. His images evoke associations with the Russian musical and poetic traditions of the early twentieth century.
Sitnikov left the Soviet Union in 1975, emigrating first to Austria and later settling in New York. He died in New York in 1987.