Olga Furman

I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia where I spent my early childhood years. At the time, Leonid Brezhnev was the leader of the communist party and the USSR called itself the most powerful country in the world. At age four, my parents left for the Far North, leaving me with my grandmother, who lived in Luga (a town a famous Russian author called Pushkin loved to visit). My grandmother would spoil me rotten. My earliest memories are from this time of my life. I distinctly remember the smell of a new pack of crayons. I loved to color, and my grandma would always buy me coloring books. There were only two different coloring books available in the store. One had line drawings of dogs, and the other of all kinds of fish. I would outline and color again and again.

At the age of seven I joined my family in the Far North as I went to first grade. My parents weren’t really supportive about my love for art. They planned my future as a piano teacher. However, they never denied my requests for art supplies and I was drawing and painting constantly. At school, kids payed attention to my love for doodling and made me the illustrator of the school newspaper. I really enjoyed doing this. Most of the drawings  I made for the paper were caricatures. I took my inspiration from a magazine called Krokodil which was soviet propaganda magazine. There were many illustrations in the magazine, most of them being people. Here is where my love for portraiture stemmed.

We left Russia in 1991. At the time, I received my pedagogical degree as an teacher for art and music. We immigrated to Israel. New life, new language, new college. One of my new friends later on brought me to the School of Art in Tel-Aviv Yafo, where I attended still life painting classes.

15 years ago I got married and my husband and I immigrated to the United States, where we live happily with two kids and a pup in the suburbs. I have a home art studio where I create my paintings and give art lessons.