Alexander Pavlenko grew up in Ryazan, a Russian city south-east of Moscow. From an early age he was fascinated by comics and animation, and in 1980 moved to Moscow to study history, art and animation. He was fortunate to find work at the pioneering animation studio, Pilot, with Alexander Mikhailovich Tatarsky. Pilot was the first independent film studio in the Soviet Union, and Tatarsky its artistic director; here Pavlenko created artwork for a variety of science fiction and adventure projects.  Alongside his animation work, he also started creating illustrations for graphic novels.

In 1992 he moved to Frankfurt in Germany. Always following his passion for history, literature, and art, he has illustrated the works of Pushkin, Georges Batailles, de Sade, Oscar Wilde, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Nikolai Leskow. His international collaborations and exhibitions include Éditions Denoël, the State Russian Museum, Édition Faust and Éditions Gallimard.

Most recently, he collaborated with the French author Camille de Toledo on the graphic novel Herzl, Eine Europäische Geschichte (Herzl, A European Story), about the life and work of the Zionist pioneer Theodor Herzl.

Alexander Pavlenko’s website, with many more examples of his work, can be found here.