13 December] 1913, Petropavlovsk, Russian Empire, now Petropavl in Kazakhstan[1] – 26 August 2006, Cape Town, South Africa) was an artist whose painting Chinese Girl, popularly known as The Green Lady, is one of the best-selling art prints of the twentieth century.

Tretchikoff worked as a scene painter at the city's Russian opera house, and went to school until the age of 16.

In Shanghai, Tretchikoff worked as an art director and illustrator for Mercury Press, an American-owned advertising and publishing company.

The couple moved to Singapore, where Tretchikoff worked for an advertising agency, gave art lessons, and contributed artwork to the Straits Times.

When the Second World War spread to the Pacific in 1940, Tretchikoff became a propaganda artist working for the British Ministry of Information.

Tretchikoff quickly became known in South Africa thanks to a book that collected his portraits of Asian women and paintings of flowers, and held successful exhibitions in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

[1] One of his British admirers, Leslie Rigall, bought a dozen of his paintings, and designed his new house in Windsor Great Park around them.

His Chinese Girl, a 1952 painting featuring Eastern model, Monika Pon-su-san,[4] with blue-green skin, is one of the best selling prints of the twentieth century.

In 1973, Tretchikoff published his autobiography, Pigeon's Luck, with Anthony Hocking,[5] an account of his wartime experiences.

[1] In 2013, the first complete biography of the artist, Incredible Tretchikoff by Boris Gorelik, was published in London by Art / Books[2] and in Cape Town by Tafelberg.

In October 2002 another original fetched $18,000[6] and in May 2008, Fruits of Bali earned $480,000 at Stephan Welz & Co in Cape Town.

[8][9] Tretchikoff suffered a stroke in 2002 that left him unable to paint, and died on 26 August 2006 in Cape Town, his home since 1946.