Boris Uspensky was a Soviet and Russian poster and graphic artist whose work helped redefine the Soviet poster in the postwar period. His best-known posters, created in collaboration with fellow artist Oleg Savostyuk, drew on the Russian lubok tradition, using bright colours, simplified forms and narrative imagery to bring a more expressive and painterly quality to the genre.

Born in Moscow in 1927, Uspensky studied at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute from 1947 to 1953 and became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR that year. His partnership with Savostyuk began after graduation and continued for decades. Together they worked for major publishing houses including Izogiz, Plakat, Soviet Russia and Soviet Artist, as well as the Agitplakat workshop. Their work was described by art historian Mikhail Lazarev as a breakthrough that returned the poster to the status of a work of art.

From the mid-1960s, Uspensky travelled regularly to Karelia, producing series devoted to its landscape and people, including The Loggers of Karelia, Border Guards and Karelia. He also developed a long-standing relationship with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. His first ballet poster, Swan Lake, was created for the company's 1958 tour of France. Over subsequent decades he designed posters and programme illustrations for productions including Petrushka, Spartacus, Ivan the Terrible, Paganini and Romeo and Juliet. His experience inside the theatre led him to return repeatedly to ballet as a subject, depicting dancers and choreographers during rehearsals, performances and moments of rest in oil, tempera, gouache, pencil and screenprint.

Uspensky was appointed professor and head of the Graphics Department at the Surikov Institute in 1985 and named People's Artist of the USSR in 1986. He became a full member of the Russian Academy of Arts in 1992 and received the Order of Friendship in 1997. Alongside his theatre and poster work, he frequently painted the landscapes around Tarusa, his father's birthplace on the Oka River. He died in Moscow in 2005.

Boris Aleksandrovich Uspensky