Alexander Lobanov

In 1937, his family was relocated from their home town of Mologa to make way for the construction of the Rybinsk Reservoir, forcing him to abandon his studies at the school for the deaf he was attending.

A very rebellious and aggressive child, and having lost his access to support and rehabilitation, he became increasingly volatile until his family had him confined to a mental asylum in the nearby city of Yaroslavl in 1945.

His subject matter strayed little from his taste for detailed self-portraits, often with himself being portrayed similarly to Russian revolutionary icons, almost always carrying or surrounded by rifles, machine guns, swords, and other various weapons.

His photographic portraits were similar to his drawings as he would stage himself, creating his own environment and firearms from cardboard paper with ornaments and communist symbols drawn onto the prints.

In 2001 a short documentary, Alexandre Pavlovitch Lobanov, was made by the French filmmaker Bruno Decharme.