Galina Alexandrovna Smirnova was born on 17 February 1929 in the town Soligalich, Kostroma Oblast of the Russian SFSR.
In 1949 Galina Smirnova entered at the first course of Department of Painting at the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, where she studied under Ivan Stepashkin, Vladislav Anisovich, and Mikhail Avilov.
In 1955 Galina Smirnova graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin in Yuri Neprintsev workshop together with Piotr Litvinsky, Evgeny Maltsev, Victor Reykhet, Yuri Belov, and other young artists.
In a creative sense, the most interesting are her portraits of contemporaries, as well as nature studies and genre paintings.
Paintings by Galina Alexandrovna Smirnova reside in Art museums and private collections in the Russia,[4] France,[5] Germany, and others.