Mikhail Tsekhanovsky  Mikhail Mikhailovich Tsekhanovsky (; — 22 June 1965) was a Russian and Soviet artist, animation director, book illustrator, screenwriter, sculptor and educator. He was one of the founders and unchallenged leaders of the Leningrad school of Soviet animation. Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR (1964). Mikhail Tsekhanovsky was born in Proskurov (modern-day Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine) into a Russian noble family. His father Mikhail Yurievich Tsekhanovsky (Polish: "Ciechanowski") (1859—1928/29) was an Active State Councillor and a sugar manufacturer, an official representative of the All-Russian Society of Sugar Manufacturers who emigrated to Paris following the October Revolution. His mother Zinaida Grigorievna Tsekhanovskaya died in 1899 aged 32. Tsekhanovsky was raised in Saint Petersburg and studied in the First Saint Petersburg Gymnasium, the most prestigious school of its time where only children of noblemen were accepted. He started painting while still in gymnasium, and upon graduation left for Paris where he was trained as a sculptor in private workshops between 1908 and 1910. On his return Tsekhanovsky entered the Imperial Academy of Arts and the Saint Petersburg Imperial University Faculty of Law, but left both of them with the start of the World War I and moved to Moscow. He then entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture which he finished in 1918. Same year he was enrolled to the 16th Army by the Soviet authorities where his talents were used for agitprop. Tsekhanovsky drew posters, designed agitational trains, painted cinemas and clubs, carved sculptures and made scenery for the front theatre. From 1920 to 1922 he also headed the art studio at the Smolensk Red Army University. Among his students was Mikhail Volpin who later wrote screenplays for many of his animated projects. In 1923 Tsekhanovsky demobilized and returned to Saint Petersburg (then Petrograd, renamed to Leningrad in a year) where he continued the art career. Among his projects were cinema posters that advertised foreign movies. He also taught art at the Tavricheskaya Art School. In 1926 he joined a group of book illustrators headed by Vladimir Lebedev which specialized on children's literature. Tsekhanovsky's area was popular science.