Biography

1931-2012

He was born in 1931 in Kyiv. In 1955 he graduated from Kyiv State Art Institute. He is a member of the Union of Artists and a member of a creative society "Look"("Poglyad").

Ernest Kotkov had a unique gift of the Renaissance universalism. His creative works include poster drawings, easel paintings, monumental and decorative mosaics and the plastic arts.

Since the 1960s Kotkov has been paying attention to everything that is living, partial and rebellious in the artistic life of Ukraine.

The newspaper "Pravda", ideological body of the Central Committee of the CPSU, once published an article in which E. Kotkov was called "an abstract artist, a formalist and a cosmopolitan". After such a compliment he burnt his 8 canvases.

Kotkov was "not taken" to the official so-called "thematic" art exhibitions of that time.

The first art exhibition where Kotkov's pictures were exhibited was "Look", the exhibition of easel paintings of Kyiv monumentalists. Since that time 'pictures have been exhibiting numerous exhibitions in Ukraine, France, Austria, Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland, Belgium and Luxemburg. His works can be found in the museums and private collections of Ukraine, France, the USA, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, ets.
As a painter E. Kotkov was a person of extremes and contrasts. So, side by side with vivid abstractions, the picture of his wife Valentina ( in the oval ) is taken as a completed work of the old masters. The pictures painted by E.Kotkov are rather like the original and at the same time they are prophetic, as if he forsaw the fate of the painted people. In his works the original stile, unlike anybody else's is worked out. This non-standard, non-commonplace thinking, this genetic spirit of searches, motion, and uneasiness are materialized in vanguard concrete compositions which beautify a lot of cities in Ukraine.