Leonid Petrushin graduated the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov in 1975.
The artist pursues painting (oil, tempera, oil pastel), graphics (lithography, pencil drawing), makes portraits to order.
In the collection of the International Confederation of the Art Unions there are 11 portraits by Petrushin, done in pencil on watercolor paper during the period from 1978 to 1983. Portrait “Vera” of 1983 was purchased by Peter Ludwig, a famous collectioner.
Leonid Petrushin is a constant participant of Moscow, Russian, Soviet Federation and International exhibitions. In 1978 he was awarded the Academy of Arts Diploma for the best poster of the year for “Onward to Morning Dawn”. In 1980 he became the first award winner of the International Poster contest in Warsaw. In 1985 and 1987 he created two series of pencil portraits of the villagers of the village Purnema, Onega area, and of the village Rastovtsy of Taldomsky region. For several years the artist has been making sketches of the underground railway passengers, now there are more than six thousands of these small (7,5x7,5 cm) portraits, and it became possible to create the “Metro” series.
As of 2005 to 2008 the artist was creating a great series of oil pastels on torchon paper, The “NU” Symphony. The series includes more than 120 pieces of 75x75cm size, and about 700 sketches of 42x43 cm size.
As of 1989 to 1997 the artist created a series of triptychs (48x36 cm, paper, pencil), paying his tribute to kinetic art. This series was purchased by Jean Cherqui, a notable French collector.
Inspired by this success, the artist continued working on the series. Today this collection includes 80 triptychs.
The exhibition “Kinetic Objects” was on display in the municipal Moscow gallery “L” in 2007, and in the A.N. Radichshev State Art Museum of the city of Saratov.
In 2009 Jean Cherqui purchased at the Realites Nouvelles 2009 exhibition in Paris the series “Geometrical Phonetics” of 57 sheets, pencil on watercolor paper 48x36 cm.
During the period from 2006 to 2010 the artist had forteen single-artist exhibitions, where his works were purchased by private collectors and by A.N. Radichshev State Art Museum of the city of Saratov.
At present Leonid Petrushin is working on the series “100 Portraits”.