The Russian painter, Grigory Roshin, was born in Moscow in 1956 to the family of a sea sailor. In 1962, in accordance with his father’s new appointment, the family moved to a military marine base in the small town of Kronshtadt. It was here on the Baltic seashore, 40 miles from St. Petersburg, that Grigory spent his childhood. He witnessed the hard life of military sailors and fishermen. He listened to, and remembered for the rest of his life, the stories about their sea adventures and travels in the far off and mysterious land of Holland.

Grigory’s family were friends with a family of fisherman whose boat frequently visited Amsterdam. As a boy, Grigory visited the family’s home many times and was fascinated by the pictures of Holland and books about it’s history and culture. This initial introduction of Holland through photographs left an indelible trace in the boy’s soul and manifested itself in his first simple drawings. The cold and reserved beauty of the northern country, the sea scenery and the life of the fisherman was what he sought to capture. He made his first attempts to draw at the age of nine, at first in pencil and then in watercolors. Of course his first pictures were very naïve, but his school art teacher noticed the boy’s talent and passion for drawing and persuades his parents to encourage the young artist. The future painter attended a local art school and participated in local art exhibitions.

After graduating from school, Grigory worked as a designer at several enterprises. In 1982 the Roshin family returned to Moscow and Grigory entered the Moscow Art College. There he studied the history and artistic style of old master artists, predominately the Dutch painters. Parallel to his studies he earned his living by illustrating children’s books and creating genre paintings.

His artistic style has absorbed all of the best that was created in the romantic genre landscapes of the Dutch school by such painters as Esais van de Velde, Hendrick Averkamp, Jan van Goben. From the Dutch painters he borrowed the way of building the composition and introducing genre themes into the landscape. Also from the Dutch is Roshin’s style of balancing the sky and the earth and actively using reflections of light. English landscape painters, from the end of the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century, who represented the transition period from romanticism to realism have been influential as well. (Geinsborough, Turner, Constable).