Mikhail Shemyakin

Mihail Mikhailovich Chemiakin (or Shemyakin, born 4 May 1943) is a Russian painter, stage designer, sculptor and publisher, and a controversial representative of the nonconformist art tradition of St. Petersburg.

Mihail Chemiakin spent his early years in East Germany where his father served. His family returned to the Soviet Union in 1957. He studied at the secondary school of art affiliated with the Il’ya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad, but was expelled from it in 1961 for «aesthetic deprivation» of classmates and failing to conform to Socialist Realism norms. Between 1959 and 1971 he did all kind of niche jobs and in-between took part in different art projects.