Russian illustrator and animator Leonid Shvartsman, recognized for being the creator of the visual image of Cheburashka, a famous character in children’s literature and Russian animation, has died at the age of 101, the animation studio Soyuzmultfilm told the TASS agency.
Shvartsman, born more than a century ago in the city of Minsk, now Belarus, was the creator of the most iconic characters in Soviet animation and has 57 films to his credit as an art director and 13 as a director, the agency recalls Eph.
In addition to Cheburashka, a character devised by Eduard Uspenski and described by some as the “Soviet Mickey Mouse”, Shvartsman drew or sculpted the protagonists of such well-known animations as the golden antelope (1954) or The queen of the snow (1957), a film that according to statements took him two years of work.
Also, The theft of colors (1957) and 38 parrots (1976-1985), among many others.
The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has described him as “patriarch of the school of national animation, a man with a clear, generous and extraordinary gift”.
Shvartsman was valued in America and Europe, and in Japan he was recognized as a classic and his Cheburasha as a cult character.
The renowned Japanese cartoonist Hayao Miyazaki once confessed that he began illustrating after seeing The queen of the snow of Shvartsman, according to the Spanish agency.
Leonid Shvartsman would have turned 102 on August 20.
Efe/OnCuba.
