Valeriy Gridnev PS RP ROI was born in 1956 in the Urals in Russia. He graduated from Sverdlovsk Art College in 1980 and subsequently trained for seven years at St Petersburg Academy of Arts. On graduating he won the prestigious ‘Gold Medal’. In 1999 he moved to Britain and the following year won the Frank Herring Easel Award at the Pastel Society Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London. In 2006 he won the Arts Club Award at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition and in 2012 he received the Alan Gourley Memorial Award for a painting of Outstanding Merit and First Prize in the publicly voted Stanley Grimm Award at the ROI.

He is a Full Member of the Pastel Society, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Society of Oil Painters, an accolade shared by only one other member of these eminent organisations.

In autumn 2013 his painting was chosen for the front cover of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ brochure and appeared on banners to promote the event. In 2014 his portrait commissions included Sir Michael Birt (Bailiff of Jersey).