Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff led a peripatetic life in his early days. While he was born in Petropavlovsk, Russia in 1913, in 1917 he and his parents and siblings, escaped to Harbin, China, at the onset of the Russian Revolution. As a young man, Tretchikoff lived in Shanghai, where he met and married Natalie Telpregoff (a fellow Russian refugee). The couple moved to Singapore after their 1935 wedding and lived there until the Japanese bombed the city in 1942, forcing Natalie and their daughter Mimi to evacuate. Tretchikoff also fled the city soon afterwards but was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in Java. As a prisoner of war, Tretchikoff was allowed restricted freedom to continue painting and selling his works. It was also in Java that he met his muse and mistress, Lenka (one of many such relationships that he would have throughout his life). At the war’s end, Tretchikoff reunited with his family in South Africa, the country that he would call home for the rest of his life.

In 1948, Tretchikoff held his first solo exhibition in Cape Town, to great public acclaim. Following this success, he held a few more local shows before exhibiting his work in the United States, Canada, and England. These shows were so well received that Tretchikoff decided to mass reproduce his works as prints so that they could be enjoyed by all. While he was often derided by critics and his fellow artists as ‘kitsch’, it is clear from his sustained popularity that he is still a relevant and admired artist today.

In 2002, Tretchikoff had a stroke that left him unable to paint and he died in 2006 at the age of 92.