He spent most of his creative career at the Soyuzmultfilm, in Moscow, where he worked as an art director on Cheburashka, 38 Parrots, The Golden Antelope, The Scarlet Flower, The Snow Queen, among others.

After his elementary education ended due to his interest in communist youth movements, he attended a gymnasium which today has been converted into a public school.

Shvartsman's mother and nephew starved to death in the Siege of Leningrad, and, in his words, "not a single one of my peers ever returned to the battlefield.

In 1945, he applied to the film institute, VGIK, and in 1951 when he graduated, secured the entry to Soyuzmultfilm, where he stayed his entire career.

[7] Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he signed a public letter condemning the invasion, along with other notable animators such as Yuri Norstein and Garri Bardin.