Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretychikov was born on December 26, 1913, in Petropavlovsk, Russian Empire, and passed away on August 26, 2006, in Cape Town, South Africa. He was an artist.

Tretychikov spent his childhood in Petropavlovsk and in the Far East, near the Grodekovo station. In 1924, his family emigrated to China, and he spent his youth in Harbin.

From 1930, Tretychikov lived in Shanghai, where he worked as an illustrator and art director at the publishing and advertising studio Mercury Press, which belonged to American Asiatic Underwriters, later becoming part of the largest insurance corporation, American International Group. He was a member of the Shanghai artists' association HLAM and collaborated with Russian magazines in China, such as 'Rubizh', 'Prozhektor', and 'Ponedelnik'. From 1934 to 1942, Tretychikov worked in Singapore at the largest advertising agency in Southeast Asia, Warin Studios, creating caricatures for the Straits Times newspaper. With the onset of World War II, he began illustrating propaganda materials for the British Ministry of Information.

During the war, Tretychikov found himself in a prisoner of war camp in Java, but after a few months, he was released and lived and worked in Jakarta until 1945.

In 1947, he moved to Cape Town and became the most famous artist residing in South Africa.

In the UK, Tretychikov gained fame in the mid-1950s. In 1962, his exhibition at Harrods department store attracted 205,000 visitors in a month, setting a record. He held a total of 52 solo exhibitions in China, South Africa, the USA, Canada, and the UK. In South Africa, he was called 'Trety'. Among his famous works are 'Chinese Woman', 'Miss Wong', 'Woman of the East', 'Lost Orchid', 'Weeping Rose', and 'Dying Swan', dedicated to British dancer Alicia Markova, who began her career in the Diaghilev troupe.

Tretychikov is considered one of the most commercially successful artists of the mid-20th century. Reproductions of his paintings became popular in the UK, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. They appeared in films by Alfred Hitchcock, Lewis Gilbert, and Guy Ritchie, in Monty Python sketches, as well as in music videos by David Bowie, Jamiroquai, and The White Stripes.