Grigoriy Krasnov was born in the village of Kazansk, Sverdlovsk Region, in 1941. He studied painting and graphic art at Omsk State Teaching Institute from 1964 to 1969. He has been a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR since 1980. He lives and works in Abakan.
Krasnov went down in history of Siberian art as a talented graphic artist known for his stable, professional, high-quality, and diverse work involving different subjects an genres. He has created a number of compositions dedicated to history and ethnography of people living in Khakassia. And his interpretation of people’s life with attributes of social changes in our vast region’s landscapes features no bathos of those times. Instead it boats lyrical warm intonations. All his series feature a figurative code with spatial relations, tonal and decorative colors, rhythmic arrangement of sheets, and angles in compositions playing a significant role.

During the challenging times of national and cultural self-identification that Khakassia’s intellectuals struggled to undergo G. Krasnov turned to historical and cultural traditions of the region , which has existed for over five centuries now. And this is understandable, since Khakassia is a territory with the greatest abundance of cultural relics in Russia. He is one of artists that follow a trend which art theorists call “Siberian neomythologism” (archeo-art). It stands to mention that sign and symbolic image system, as well as the style of G. Krasnov’s pictorial cycles appear clear both in Khakassia, and general cultural environment of Siberia.

In Khakassia Republic’s creative environment Grigoriy Krasnov now belongs to an older generations of artists with the longest membership of the Unions of Artists. He has been a member of the organization for thirty years now. He was the establisher and first director of Achinsk Art School, which provided dozens of region’s artists with first-level educations.

Having an experience of work for the Union of Artists G. Krasnov became one of the organizers and first Chairman of Republic’s Union of Artists Regional Office from 1990 to 1993. It helped to unite separate artists from Abakan, Minusinsk and Sayanogorsk and strengthen the status of the professional organization in Khakassia’s culture system.

The artist has won numerous prizes for his active exhibition activity and successes in art by the Board of Republic’s Union of Artists, Khakassia Republic’s Government, and city authorities. He has won several competition displays.

The artist’s creations are held in many art museums in Siberia, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Moscow. His works can also be found in German galleries in Karlsruhe and Darmstadt. Today G.S. Krasnov is one of the most popular and acknowledged artists of Khakassia. He presents Republic’s art at regional and all-Russia levels embodying unique local features of modern-day art mind which considers restoration of spiritual life basics of the territory rich in cultural artifacts and traditions as a reasons for creations. Like some of his contemporaries who work over Siberian regional subjects relying an traditions of Postmodernism he is passionate about the so-called great art idea. In December 2011 the artists will celebrate his 70th anniversary.

T. Vysotskaya, arts critic, Honoured Figure of Culture of the Russian Federations