As an Iconographer, Igor Suhacev, has worked in Ethiopia, the United States and Canada.
Born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1925, the son of Russian parents who fled their homeland after the Russian Revolution, Igor recalls that the family elected to leave Belgrade before the Soviet Army occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.
religious themes and holy figures. As an Iconographer, Igor Suhacev, has worked in Ethiopia, the United States and Canada.
Born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1925, the son of Russian parents who fled their homeland after the Russian Revolution, Igor recalls that the family elected to leave Belgrade before the Soviet Army occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.

While living in a displaced persons camp near Hamburg, Germany, 1945, Igor, who like his father Petr, was an iconographer, studied secular art at the Hamburg Academy of Art and completed further studies in iconography at a Russian icon school, also in Hamburg.

In 1949, the family left Europe and immigrated to Ethiopia where Igor and his father designed and painted a number of churches, stained glass windows, and the throne for Emperor Haile Selassie.

At the urging of Petr’s sister, Elizabeth, who immigrated to Toronto, 1949, and worked in Toronto’s garment district, the family decided to move to Toronto, 1957, where Igor, after a brief stint with an architect, returned to his first interest as an iconographer, painting five churches in Toronto, five in Hamilton, and others in St. Catharines, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; Roblin, Manitoba; and Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

Other major commissions – some taking years to complete – took Igor to Chicago, Illinois, and South Bend, Indiana.
Igor’s wife, Sylvia, born in Smolensk, also immigrated from Russia following World War II, worked as a domestic for a year before meeting Igor in Toronto.

They now live in Mississauga where Igor, having retired from the tough physical demands of painting walls and ceilings, now paints landscapes on canvas.

In this view, Igor Suhacev, well-known Canadian iconographer, completes a frescoe in one of many churches he has embellished with religious themes and holy figures.