Valentin Shkolny grew up in his native Ukraine, where he began painting as a child and took his first photograph - of his mother - when he was 12. Photographs he took while serving as a seaman in World War II were confiscated by the KGB. Over the ensuing years Shkolny concentrated on black-and-white photography, managing to capture identities including Dimitri Shostakovich, Danny Kaye, Tony Curtis, Yuri Gagarin, Maya Plisetskaya and Rostislav Rostropovich. From 1961 onward he took part in art and photographic competitions in New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow and Sydney. In 1993 he realized a long-held dream of coming to Australia.
Updated 2018
