Anatoli Pavlovich Levitin was born in Moscow on July 16, 1921. He received a traditional Russian art training beginning with his childhood studies at the Central House of Artistic Education of Children in Moscow, followed by study at the Secondary Art School at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He graduated in 1941. Levitin served at the front in the Great Patriotic War (WWII) from 1942 to 1945 and returned to St. Petersburg where he began studies at the Repin Institute. He studied under professors A.D. Zaitsev, Fogel, Ovsyannikov and Ostova. He was in the studio of Professor and Acadmician B.V. Ioganson. He was influenced by the Russian Realist painters Ilya Repin, Valentin Serov, Issac Levitan, and Mikhail Vrubel, as well as French painters, Van Gogh, Manet, Sisley, and Italian painters. He became a member of the Artists’ Union of Russia in 1951. He has been a participant in more than 200 all-Russian, republican and international art exhibitions, including such countries as Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria, France, the UK, Japan, China, and the United States. He became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts in 1975. He is now a full member of the Academy, which gives him the prestigious title of “Academician”. He also holds the title “People’s Artist of Russia”. He has been awarded with many governmental decorations. He is primarily well known for his wonderful portraits, which capture the nature of the people as well as the atmosphere where they lived, worked, and studied. As a result, we know something of the personality from looking at the portrait.