Alexander Shilov. Portrait of Yuri Gagarin, 1974

Alexander Shilov painted this portrait of Yuri Gagarin in 1974, six years after the death of the first cosmonaut. On 12 April 1961, aboard the Vostok-1 spacecraft, Gagarin became the first person to fly into space, and on 27 March 1968 he was killed.

Shilov painted cosmonauts from the very start of his career. Born in Moscow in 1943, he studied at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute in 1968–1973; his diploma work consisted of portraits of cosmonauts painted in Star City. In 1977 he received the Lenin Komsomol Prize for a series of portraits of Soviet cosmonauts.

Oil on canvas. Shilov's name is listed on the painting collection page of the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.