He was born on July 6, 1944 in Moscow. He spent his childhood on the streets of Arbat and on Gogol Boulevard. Igor Smirnov studied at the Moscow and Leningrad art schools. He later graduated from the Moscow Art School. Since 1970 he has painted canvases and worked as a mosaicist, interior designer, as well as a caricaturist and illustrator for various newspapers, magazines and books. He is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists and the International Federation of Artists (IFA) and the Moscow Union of Journalists. He is also an academician of the International Academy of Culture of the Fund for People's Diplomacy and an academician of the Academy of Caricaturists of France. He is included in the Dictionary of International Biography (xxllled.) and (xed.), both published by the Cambridge International Biographical Centre. Since 1971 he has participated in more than 250 exhibitions in Russia and other countries, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Holland, England, Belgium, Germany, France, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Italy , Spain, Australia, the Philippines and Japan. His works of art are exhibited in museums, art galleries and individual collections in these countries.