Igor Semenovich Zherebtsov was born on May 5, 1941, in the villageof Panino in the Voronezh Region. After leaving secondary school, he entered the Kursk Pedagogical Institute in the drawing department. In 1965 he entered the Repin Art Institute in Leningrad where his teacher was Efsei Efseevich Moiseenko. He graduated from the Repin in 1971