Drawing was always a part of my life. I went to a school of art in Leningrad (St. Petersburg today). I had a teacher who taught me to feel reverence for works of art. He introduced me to Eugène Fromentin and his passionate relationship with Flemish painting.

I became a student of architecture, I was lucky with the professors. Among them we had Lazar Markovich Khidekel, a famous avant-garde artist, a student of Marc Chagall and a member of the Vitebsk group of artists led by Kazimir Malevich.

Upon graduating from university I continued attending classes with Professor Alexander Pavlovich Zaytsev at the Leningrad Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design. He introduced me to the school of analytical drawing. So I turned to the fine arts.

Peter Otlan