Irina Kazakova

Irina Ivanovna Kazakova (born on August 28th, 1935) is an artist and book illustrator. She graduated from the graphic department of the Russian Academy of Arts, where she studied under Mikhail Afanasievich Taranov.

“I entered the Academy of Arts. I learned not only from wonderful teachers, but also from my mother and grandmother, who had no formal training but were very talented and drew beautifully. We students at the Academy also learned a great deal from each other. We looked at each other’s works, discussed them, encouraged and criticized. Among my classmates were Mikhail Maiofis, Mikhail Belomlinsky, Svet Ostrov, and others who are now very well-known artists. In our fifth year, each of us had to present a diploma project. I chose to illustrate Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen. The teachers liked my work and showed it to diplomats from the Danish consulate. The Danes liked it as well, and it was agreed that my illustrations would be sent to the homeland of the great storyteller – to Denmark. Now my drawings can be seen by Andersen’s compatriots, and people from many different countries come there. I still get excited every time I think that my works are kept in the very house where Hans Christian Andersen was born, where he grew up, played, and walked, where he composed his amazing fairy tales. Maybe it was there that he first conceived The Snow Queen?”