Dmitry Plavinsky (1937–2012) was one of the main figures of Moscow Nonconformism of the 2nd half of the 20th century and creator of his own symbolical philosophy. The artist with his powerful energy and thoughtful analysis gained wide international acclaim.
Dmitry Plavinsky was born in Moscow in 1937. From 1951 to 1956 he studied at the theatrical department of the Art School in Memory of 1905. Dmitry Plavinsky became one of the best masters of the Moscow "unofficial art". In the 1960s - 1970s he was a member of The Twenty, a well-known group of the Moscow  avant-garde artists and participated in a number of sensational exhibitions. Dmitry Plavinsky was one of the founders and leaders of the Nonconformist art movement in Russia. From 1975 he was a member and regular participant of exhibitions of the Moscow City Committee of Graphic Artists in Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. From 1978 he was a member of the Moscow Union of Artists.
From 1991 to 2004 the artist lived and worked in New York. Dmitry Plavinsky gained special popularity with his romantic and melancholic paintings and drawings, which combine features of intricate hyper realistic surrealism with Orthodox church motives. The tragedy in New York of September 11, 2001 was followed with the series of works Apocalypse on September 11. The finished the American period in the artist's life and creativity. In 2004 Dmitry Plavinsky returned to Moscow once and for all. He has a foster daughter, the gallery owner Elizabeth Plavinskaya.
Dmitry Plavinsky developed his own philosophical art trend known as Structural Symbolism.  Every work by him is a multilayered figurative structure. Any subject is interpreted by the author as a part of a complex symbol necessary for deep understanding of the Universe. The latter is perceived by the artist as the picture of Single Time. The meanings and metaphysics are somehow historically related to artistic material and continue the classics, such as Duerer, Goya, and Rembrandt.
Art works by Dmitry Plavinsky are kept in a number of well-known collections: the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Russian Museum, the Kolodzey Collection of the Russian and East European art, the Kolodzei Art Foundation, the USA, the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.