Boris Mikhailovich Lavrenko was born on May 6, 1920 in Rosov-on-Don. At the age of 16 he entered the Rostov Trade School of Arts and studied there from 1936 to 1940. He took part in local art exhibits through 1948. Lavrenko became Master Sergeant of the 199th Bradenburg Infantry Regiment during the Great Patriotic War from 1941-1945. He received the Patriotic War Order and numerous medals including the Victory Over Germany medal. After the war he continued his studies at the Rostov Art College from 1945 to 1946, and upon graduation he entered the Painting Department at the Repin Institute in Leningrad. Under the guidance of Pavlovsky, Frenz, Serebriany, and Ioganson, he graduated with a degree in painting six years later. In 1952, Lavrenko began exhibiting his works in major art exhibitss in Leningrad as well as republican and national exhibitions in Moscow. He became a member of the Leningrad Chapter of the Russian Artists’ Union in 1953, and in 1954 he began teaching at the Repin Institute. The Institute named him a docent in 1962, and in 1976 he became a professor. He published several articles on the methodology of teaching the collections of scientific articles in “Iskusstvo” (”Art”) magazine. “My credo is the unity of truth and beauty, the truth of beauty and the beauty of truth.” Lavrenko was the subject of a monograph by A. I. Roschchin, published in Leningrad in 1989, articles in the exhibit catalogs “Iskusstvo” and “Khudozhknik”, the “Sovetskaya Kultura” newspaper, and others. In 1972, Lavrenko held personal exhibits in Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov-on-Don. In 1976, he was named Honorable Artist of Russia. In 1980, he received the M. B. Grekov Silver Medal for his paintings depicting the Great Patriotic War. His thesis, “The Contribution of B. V. Ioganson and His School to the Formation and Development of Soviet Thematic Painting”, was published in 1983, the year Lavrenko earned his Ph.D. in the Study of Art. “I met Americans back in 1945 in occupied Berlin. The Americans and we, the Russians, are very similar in nature and in our attitude toward life and people. I feel great affection for them.) He died in 2001. Lavrenko’s works are found in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, in museums and private collections in Ashkhabad, Briansk, Vladimir, Orel, Rostov-on-Don, Moscow, St. Petersburg, England, France, Japan, Germany, Colombia, Turkey, and the United States.