Eric Bulatov was born in 1933 in Sverdlovsk but moved to Moscow with his family at the age of three. He studied at the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, where he met many artists of the previous generation such as Robert Falk, Vladimir Favorsky, and Artur Fonvizin, who had managed to preserve the artistic tradition of the avant-garde in their work. After graduating in 1958, Bulatov worked as an illustrator of children’s books, for which he received numerous awards. Book illustration provided Bulatov with the opportunity to work independently on his painting.
In the 1960s Bulatov joined Kabakov, Pivovarov, Shteinberg, and Yankilevsky in forming the Sretensky Boulevard Group. He is an important representative of the older generation of unofficial artists and of the Moscow Conceptualists. His paintings depict large, bright slogans in Russian or English, often in red lettering. These phrases are painted across idyllic landscapes or scenes from everyday Soviet life.
Bulatov’s work was first exhibited in the West in the 1970s. As of the late 1980s he has actively participated in most major exhibitions of underground art in Basel, Chicago, Paris, New York, Berlin, London, and Venice. He lives in Paris.