The biography of Arkady Sher is the clearest example of selfless service to his vocation: to give young and adult children real joy and a fairy tale. By all means, become a children's artist, despite all the difficulties and lack of money. To be a truly kind and bright person.
Childhood
Arkady Solomonovich Sher was born on May 29, 1934 in Moscow. It seems that fate has been preparing our hero for life from birth, since he lived his first years on Kalyaevskaya (now Dolgorukovskaya) street in the immediate vicinity of Soyuzmultfilm, in which later Arkady Sher will devote more than thirty years. In the meantime, he started running around the studio building, inventing simple children's games with his peers, and from time to time he inhaled an unfamiliar, but for some reason such an alluring smell from a pipe sticking out of one of the windows of Soyuzmultfilm.
It was the best smell in the world - the smell of animation, magic and uncharted worlds. Only then, after many years, Arkady found out that in fact the gases from the pouring shop smelled like that, quite poisonous, and therefore dangerous.
From early childhood, the boy showed a talent for drawing. He enthusiastically copied book illustrations and invented his heroes. Pencils and an album were constant companions of the young artist. Arkady Solomonovich himself subsequently described that time as follows:
I painted better than anyone else in my family. If we take into account that in our relatives nobody painted at all ...
By the way, a neighbor of the Cher family worked in Soyuzmultfilm and more than once suggested that Arkady’s mother try her son’s strength as an artist in this studio. However, the future creator of the cartoon characters "Vacations in Prostokvashino" and "Winter in Prostokvashino" doubted his talent so much that he flatly abandoned this idea.
Youth
After graduating from seventh grade, Arkady Sher unexpectedly dropped out of secondary school and entered the railway technical school for the department of steam locomotive. However, he did not have time to finish his studies, because he was drafted into the army, into the navy.
The trials of the young sailor lasted four years. And when he finally returned to Moscow, it turned out that his department of the engine was already closed. To somehow help his son, his father put Arkady to work at a design institute. After some time, the young man nevertheless managed to enter immediately into the third year, this time the construction college.
Then misfortune happened: Arkady was in a hospital ward with an incomprehensible disease. Doctors diagnosed him incorrectly and operated on for more than two hours. As a result, Cher spent three months in the hospital and left the second group invalid.
The path to the animation
In the treasured building with a wonderful smell from childhood, Soyuzmultfilm studio, Arkady Sher was accidentally hit. One fine day in 1959, his elder brother literally flew into his room and cried out:
Let's go soon! Soyuzmultfilm announces a competition for animators. Take your drawings! ..
Arkady resisted a little, but nevertheless took his albums and followed his brother, leaning on a crutch. The admissions committee liked his drawings, but they were not professional: the lack of experience and proper education affected them. Therefore, the competition of animators Arkady did not pass.
Then Cher began to ask for any job: even an electrician or a cleaner, if only here, within the walls of Soyuzmultfilm. They went to meet him and took him to the drawing shop.
It was a real victory. At the word "shop" Arkady imagined a long spacious room, tables, bright lighting, cleanliness and order. But when he entered the drawing shop, then, by his own admission, he ended up in a real klopovnik, more like a warehouse of old furniture.
Thus began the creative career of Arkady Sher, an animator without education. The drawing workshop was the lowest paid and low-performing in Soyuzmultfilm. However, it was necessary to work here wonderfully, therefore a big turnover was noted in it. Nevertheless, Arkady spent 8 years in this place, during which time he became a true professional in his field.
Career and creativity
Starting with the drawer of Soyuzmultfilm studio, Cher went through all the other stages of the multiplier profession. From 1967 to 1979, he worked as an assistant to the production designer. Then he became the studio's production designer - he worked in this position until 1992 - and later as a director.
Having traveled such a long and thorny path to his true vocation, Arkady Solomonovich Sher participated in the creation of such masterpieces of domestic animation as “Vacations in Prostokvashino”, “Winter in Prostokvashino”, “Academician Ivanov”, “Sherlock Holmes and I,” The Adventures of Vasya Kurolesova ”,“ Case in the Swamp ”from the animated magazine“ Merry-Go-Round ”.
Also, Arkady Sher became the production designer for such cartoons as “Quasa qua”, “How a donkey got sick with sadness”, “The Cat Who Could Sing” and many others.
The most favorite hero of Cher was the postman Pechkin. Many friends and acquaintances of Arkady believed that he painted it from himself, and the character of Mom Uncle Fedor from his wife.
Below in the photo - Arkady Solomonovich Sher in the image of the postman Pechkin.
From the beginning of the 90s Arkady decided to try himself as a writer. He became the author of such books for children as “The Fifties Tales, or Such Pies”, “Got Hooked Top” and “Five Minutes to Happiness”, and in 2014 the book of his memoirs “A Look from the Window” was published.
Personal life
Toward the end of the 90s, Arkady Solomonovich was often asked if he was related to the world famous singer Cher. Actually, Cher is just a pseudonym for a celebrity. For our hero, this is a real surname. Arkady Sher is a Jewish father, and therefore his unusual surname is understandable.
He preferred not to discuss his personal life with anyone, considering it a closed topic. It is known that Arkady Solomonovich had the only beloved woman and wife - Nina Mikhailovna. They lived together a lifetime. From the very beginning they were independent, together they suffered adversity and lack of money. Arkady was very depressed that he married a young beautiful girl, very similar to Mom Uncle Fedor from the cartoon about Prostokvashino. He was unable to dress her appropriately, or even feed her. Needless to say, for a long time they lived just starving.
Nevertheless, the family of Arkady Shera treated everything stoically and with understanding. Because there were real feelings that were enough for a lifetime ...
Death
Since 2010, Arkady Solomonovich began to get very sick. He suffered from inflammation of the joints, as a result of which he forever lost the ability to draw, which became an even more terrible and painful test for the artist.
On August 7, 2018, Arkady Solomonovich passed away. He was 84 years old ...
Until the last day, he did not betray his optimistic and never discouraging character, he remained a very kind and sweet man. No one will ever know what caused Arkady Sher’s death most of all - a serious long illness or inability to draw.
The most surprising thing was the fact that until the end of his days Arkady Solomonovich continued to doubt his own unique talent and believed that all the praises he had heard in his address were far-fetched ...