Ivan Vasilevich Sorokin was born May 21, 1922 in the village of Gavrilovskoye, Moscow region. He studied at the Moscow Art School (1939-1942) under artist-professor V.V. Pochitalov. Sorokin was considered to be one of Russia's most promising art students and was evacuated to Bashkiria for protection during the early days of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1942). Sorokin later joined the Red Army and was trained as a demolitions expert and war artist in the studio of M.B. Grekhov (1943-1945). After demobilization, Sorokin returned to his education. He attended and graduated from the Surikov Institute (1945-1951) where he studied under professors S.V. Gerasimov and V. Pochitailov. Sorokin began to actively exhibit in 1944. He traveled to many parts of the USSR with other artists, including: V.F. Stozharov, V.S. Zakharkin, V.E. Tsigal, V.N. Gavrilov, Yu.L. Katz, and A.D. Sokolov. He was drawn in particular to Boldino, the home of the Russian poet Aleksander Pushkin. He was fascinated by everything associated with Pushkin in Boldino: letters, documents, and memorabilia. He attempted to paint the nature that inspired Pushkin. He was awarded the title "Honored Artist of the RFSFR" and was a "State Prize of the RFSFR (I.E. Repin Prize) Laureate." His main exhibitions are as follows: 1967 The Republic exhibition "Soviet Russia" Moscow1967 Moscow Artists to the 50th Anniversary of the great October, Moscow1967 The All-Union anniversary art exhibition "50 Years of the Soviet Power" Moscow1972 The All-Union Art Exhibition "USSR - Our Motherland" Moscow1976 Exhibition of the works of Soviet artists "To the XXV Congress of the CPSU" Moscow1976 The 5th Republican Art Exhibition "Soviet Russia" Moscow1977 The Republican Art Exhibition "60 Years of the Great October" Moscow1977 The All-Union Exhibition "60 Years of the Great October Socialist Revolution" Moscow1979 Exhibition of the works of Moscow artists, Moscow1979 The 6th Republican Exhibition "Soviet Russia" Moscow Ivan Vasilevich Sorokin died in the Moscow region in 2004 at 82 years of age. Some fellow artist's thoughts about Ivan Sorokin from the State Tretyakov Gallery retrospective exhibition catalogue. A significant number of Sorokin’s works have been acquired by the State Tretyakov Gallery and the the State Russian Museum. "All his works are marked with love to everything Russian. His art is poetic, realistic. Sorokin is a gifted artist, an artist forever looking for truth, an enemy of everything false. He's not jealous of his friends' successes, looks kindly at their genuine experiments- he's an artist with a broadminded approach to art." - Vasily Pochitalov "Sorokin inherited color exactness and a free agitating manner of painting traditional to the Moscow School. Few of our painters reach his mastery in truthful insight and genuine artistic taste; few can rival the depiction of beauty, structure and state of environment found in his landscapes. Sorokin's landscapes are not simply beautiful - they are serious, meaningful and symbolic. They wake one's good and noble feelings and are a source of aesthetic joy." - Semyen Chuykov "Ivan Sorokin is one of the traditional "pure" painters. He doesn't throw flashy puzzles at the spectator. His works are simple, but in their simplicity and clarity- in the artist's desire to allow you to see his world without overstressing his own ego- you can detect his deepest beliefs. One can't help genuinely respecting unswerving loyalty of the artist to a single painting system because it's akin to obsession." - Pavel Nikonov "Ivan Vasilyevitch Sorokin is gifted with an ability to see and reproduce in his work a deeply agitating genuine image of Russian nature. His pictures are not pretty or ceremonious landscapes, neither can you call them "cozy corners" of nature. The lyricisms of his works, their compositional constructivism are based on the significance of the image, on human feelings saturating it, on his belief in purposefulness of life manifesting itself through the rhymes of nature. It's really immaterial whether his works are inspired by Suzdal or Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, by Pereslavl-Zalessky or by Moscow and Kremlin, or if they are his little poems of Earth- sunny springs, sparkling snow-white winters, pensive autumn evenings. Sorokin paints boldly and gently at the same time, every minute detail in his pictures is exactly felt and placed, but you somehow believe that each of them was created at one sitting. This feeling is enhanced by plastically complete correlation of light and color that draws attention to form and gives texture to space. I.V. Sorokin's works always stand out. You want to return to them time and again as though to a life-giving wood springlet. You feel yourself caught in his world." - Ksenia Kravchneko