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Painter, graphic artist, illustrator, designer, teacher. Son of Victor Proshkin and Victoria Belakovskaya, nephew of Anatoly Proshkin, brother of artist Marianna Proshkina (born 1939). Born in Leningrad (1931). Evacuated to Selische in Yaroslavl Region (1941–42) and Yemurtla in Omsk (now Tyumen) Region (1942–44), where he studied drawing under Gavriil Schultz and was influenced by the works of Arkady Rylov. Returned to Leningrad (1944), where he studied at the Leningrad Secondary School of Art (1944–51) and under Alexander Zaitsev, Vasily Sokolov, Leonid Khudyakov and Boris Johanson at the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1951–57). Taught at the Vera Mukhina School of Art and Industry in Leningrad (1957–61) and collaborated with the department of children’s literature of the State Publishing House (from 1962). Visited Teriberka, Murmansk and Latvia (1956), Murmansk, Monchegorsk and Lake Imandra (1958), Chupa, Kieretti, Kiv Bay, Pulonga and the Solovki on the White Sea (1970–73), Hungary (1983), Italy (1987, 1993) and France (1992). Member of the Union of Artists (1958) and the Society of St Petersburg Watercolourists (1997), delegate to the VII Congress of Artists of the USSR (1989). Winner of the St Petersburg Government Prize for Literature, Art and Architecture (2001) and the Order for Merit to the Fatherland II (2001). Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation (2011). Lives and works in St Petersburg. Contributed to exhibitions (from 1957). Contributed to the Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists Dedicated to the Fortieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1957), Autumn Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1958), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists of 1960 at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1960), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1960), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Russian Museum and Union of Artists in Leningrad (1961), Autumn Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1962), Leningrad: Zonal Exhibition at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1964), Spring Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1965), Still-Life: Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1973), Spring Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1974), Our Contemporary: Zonal Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Russian Museum and Union of Artists in Leningrad (1975), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists Dedicated to the Sixtieth Anniversary of Great October at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Leningrad (1977), II All-Russian Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolours in Leningrad (1978), V All-Union Exhibition of Watercolours in Moscow (1978), Exhibition of Watercolours at the Union of Artists and the Vladimir Mayakovsky House of Writers in Leningrad (1978), Autumn Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1978), Zonal Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Leningrad (1980), Peinture russe at Antiquaires Drouot in Paris (1991), Petersburg: Annual Exhibitions of New Works by St Petersburg Artists at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in St Petersburg (from 1993), Link of Times: 1932–97 at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in St Petersburg (1997), Exhibition of Works of Painting by St Petersburg Artists in Nanjing, Shanghai and Beijing (1998), IV Bienal Internacional de la Acuarela at the Museo Nacional de la Acuarela “Alfredo Guati Rojo” in Mexico City (2000, diploma), St Petersburg–Moscow at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in St Petersburg (2001), St Petersburg Art of the Twentieth Century at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in St Petersburg (2002), Art of the Nations (1992–2002) at the Central House of the Artist in Moscow (2002–03), Petersburg Dynasty at the Alexander Pushkin Museum in Moscow (2004), joint exhibition with Kira Suvorova at the Union of Artists in St Petersburg (2011) and one-man shows in Leningrad/St Petersburg (1976, 1977, 1986, 1997, 2001, 2004), Sosnovy Bor (1978, 2000, 2006, 2011), Pskov, Ostrov and Pechora (1983), Moscow (1986, 1992), Jelgava (1989), Riga (1997), Helsinki (1997), Kolpino (2000) and Gatchina (2011).