Selected dates:

January 27, 1900

Born in the village of Impilahti in Karelia in the family of a chimney sweep.

1907

The artist's family was exiled to Vyritsa, not far from St. Petersburg. At the same time, Alexander chooses the pseudonym Valo, which means "light".

1916-1918

The artist moves to Petrograd, where he enters a college for the children of diplomats, where he studies until it closes. Enters the Red Army, participates in the campaign against Warsaw.

1919-1930

Lives in Belarus, where he studies at the Vitebsk Folk Art School under Yudel Pen, works at INBELCULTE, collaborates with the Pioneer of Belarus newspaper. Meets Kazimir Malevich and Marc Chagall.

1925

He takes part in the creation of the film Battleship "Potemkin", creates Belarusian cartoons, an engraving October in Space, which the author later presented to Yuri Gagarin. Among his projects of that time is also the Temple of Human Suffering in Minsk.

1927

Together with a group of like-minded people , he organized an art society Pramen, whose goal was to promote the development of industrialization with the help of a technique of graphic expression, close to facilitating mass production. They were engaged in enlightenment, design of books, performances and interiors.

1927

Together with Anatoly Tychina and Gennady Zmudinsky , he represented Belarus at the Leipzig Book Fair. In the same year, the artist used the technique of colored linocut for the first time in Europe.

1930

Moves to Moscow, where he works as a designer at the Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood. Works on a project to create green satellite cities of Moscow.

1933

Moved to Finland. There, the artist is arrested and sent to the Dragskvik camp near Raseborg.

Since 1946

After his release, he lived in Sweden.

September 15, 1997

He died in Schimrishamn, Sweden. According to his will, the ashes were scattered at sea at the convergence of the borders of Russia, Finland and Sweden - the countries that he considered his homeland.