Holly HY / 05 January 2025 / Categories: People, Creative

Ilia Annosov

Fresco master grand master

I was lucky enough to meet the artist Ilia Annosov and over 25 years ago now the experience looks large. He is a Russian fresco master, a rare talent, some say a genius.

I was producing a celebrity art show for E! Entertainment then head Jeff Shore and was introduced to Ilia by an interior designer and collector of his work in Beverly Hills.

His studio at the time was a vast space in downtown Los Angeles; his body of work was as vast and the scale of his pieces collossal from great imposing sculptures cast in bronze to trompe oeil to beautiful beautiful paintings.

His commissions are varied from millionaire Malibu ceilings frescoed and featured in architectural digest to stunning lighted 20 foot tall lanterns painted on fabric for the Academy Awards. His collectors, a long list of Hollywood A listers so high profile he keeps it confidential.

Ilia Annosov is in demand commercially for restoration project around the globe including Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, the Park Plaza Hotel LA, the iconic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, Governor’s Ball decor at the 73rd and 76th Academy Awards and 50th Emmy Awards.

Fresco has unbelievable eco credentials, is 100% green, a purely organic medium with zero VOC. All elements used come from the earth: the plaster is made of marble lime putty and sand. All the pigments are prepared from natural minerals and clays. Ad the wet plaster absorbs natural paint and reacts with the air, the pigments get permanently embedded into cured plaster leaving works of art intact for generations and millennia. Ilia says “Painting in fresco is like painting with molten marble”

Like all renaissance men before him Ilia is extremely passionate about his rare and unique talent, a modern day Michelangelo casting plaster on which to paint and then a time limit to precisely and carefully paint, each brush trick precise there can be no mistakes before the plaster dries and the art is set in stone.

Leonardo Da Vinci’d famous last super in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy is a fresco of this nature.

To watch Ilia on his ladders, hanging from scaffolding does give you a real sense of the work going on at The First American Fresco school where Ilia and his team host students and artists from all over the world, truly a one of a kind experience based in Los Angeles California.

To view the current collection and find out more about upcoming events and exhibitions check out Truefresco.com

The portrait is of the artist’s wife Lena.

The Albuquerque Fresco by Ilia Anossov is a paradigm of a brilliant modern fresco. Its technique is on the Grande scale, 23ft by 19ft. It is the largest modern day Fresco in existence.