The B. Ioganson State Academic Art Lyceum was founded 65 years ago (1935)  in St. Petersburg for children. The Lyceum, affiliated with the Russian Art Academy, is a unique educational institution for children. The Lyceum offers free art education, general as well as specialized, at the primary and secondary levels. In Russia, only Moscow has a similar kind of institution.

Talented children aged 11-18 from St-Petersburg and other Russian cities as well as from other countries such as Greece, Bulgaria and Korea come to study here. Children attending the school take classes in drawing, painting, graphics, composition, sculpture, architecture, anatomy and the history of art, along with other regular subjects.

 The teachers (Tatjana Kopnina, Tatjana Gorb, Michail Chernyshov, Natalia Pushnina, Peter Lerner and other artists), many of them Luceum graduates themselves, are also well-known art luminaries. That is perhaps the reason for the coordial and respectful relationship between teachers and students that one observes there. No matter if you are a little kid or a grown-up professional artist, you are treated with dignity. Many of the Lyceum's students, still in their tender school years, participate in a number of
prestigious competitions and exhibitions.

by Asya Vlasova