I was born in evacuation in 1941 году, as soon as the train with the staff of Leningrad Theatre named after Pushkin reached Novosibirsk (my father Simon Dreyden was the theatre literary director).

By the end of the war we lived in Moscow behind the curtains of the Chamber Theatre (my dad was Tairov's literary director), and we walked with my mom along Tverskoy boulevard from the kindergarten in the evening, squeezed into our room under the stage, where there was a performance on (for instance, “The Sea Spread Out Wide” or “Seagull” with Alisa Koonen).

From 1948 we lived in Leningrad on Tchaikovskogo street with my mom, and my dad started his work for Kremlin (a version for a child), which really was a bit further, in a camp outside Kemerovo. My mother, Zina Dontsova, was an actress, an elocutionist, I visited her concerts and carried her suitcase with a dress, shoes, makeup...

My parents were tied by friendship with S.V.Obraztsov (and named me after him). Sergey Vladimirovitch was a wonderful artist, without speaking about his highest artistry, and I think that being a guest in his and Olda Alexandrovna’s flat in Moscow, talking to him, watching off-stage his performances with dolls for thousand times I couldn’t but take in the world of this great “Art World” man.

Among the pictures you’ll find “A Sick Boy”. It’s me. I had a sore throat, and I had many of them: milk, honey, gargle, bed rest.

Headphones, radio program, theatre at the microphone, a drawing book, colored pencils, modeling clay. By the age of 13 I got stronger, grew up, entered a school of art on Tavricheskaya street, sculpture department. My parents bought me a sketch-book, brushes, watercolors and oils. I studied the basics of drawing and sculpture for a short time, then I preferred photography, had a stab at a cameraman’s career, and became an actor. By finishing school #203, I entered Theatre Institute on Mokhovaya. And I’m still an actor.

I was drawing at the lectures in Theatre Institute on Mokhovaya, at home, and while already working in theatres and in dressing rooms. Thus, in 1964 after I was employed by the Theatre of Comedy, I showed my drawings to Nikolay Pavlovitch Akimov. And when I went to school and to the institute I made friends with the guys who were drawing and writing.  We attended exhibitions at the Russian Museum, at the Hermitage, and later on, when I was not working in theatre for some time and was moonlighting, I sat at home and drew. That was the way, when I wasn’t employed as an actor, I kept in touch with the ART OF IMAGINATION through drawing. In the 80s me, my wife and my son Kolya lived in Kiev, in the house of Kolya’s grandmother Nila Pavlovna Ripskaya, who was a fine art expert and was teaching history of arts at the Institute named after Karpenko-Kariy. She supported my drawing in all ways (however, who strictly speaking could discourage me?!) and asked me to take myself seriously. I think it was then, in the middle of the 80s, when my ship changed its course. In the mornings I walked in Kiev, looking at houses, people, plants, something I kept in mind, something I sketched in pencil without looking at a sheet of paper, made notes of colors, and in the evening I turned these sketches (etudes, exercises like in acting) into pictures. In those Kiev days my “pictures from the memory” were born, these are adventures of Seryozha the boy.

And now I see that the life which I spent was spent in theatre, and you know, I don’t regret it at all. Moreover, I’m grateful to people who tied me with theatre.

I escaped from Theatre any times, hid, didn’t show myself, but by God it was the essence of my life.

When I gave up playing on stage, became a driver, a worker in a geological party (thanks to Gena Sotnikov!) or a pressman in a printing agency, I got down to drawing and it helped me to get close to new acting. Theatre appeared again.

I realize that I’m only a DRAWING ACTOR, and not an ACTING ARTIST. And I’m happy with this state of things. I swear, I’m not competing with any of artists. Thank God, there’s a wide choice, there is someone to love, and I want everybody to draw joyfully and with feeling the saddest pictures.