Until 2003 Vitaly Komar worked in co-authorship with Alexander Melamid. This creative duet is considered to be the founder of the Sots Art trend.

Vitaly Komar was born into the family of military lawyers in Moscow on September 11, 1943. After the end of war his parents were sent to Germany for work. For two post-war years Vitaly was brought up in his grandfather's family in Russia. Soon after the boy's parents return from Germany the future artist was tutored by his mother who worked as a labor law teacher at the Institute of Professional Development for Enterprise Directors.

In Moscow Vitaly Komar attended an art school; when studying at evening school he at the same time worked in the Moscow Drama and Art School, where his grandfather worked as well. In 1967 Vitaly graduated from the Stroganov Art and Industry Academy, where he studied together with Alexander Melamid. In the 1970s their creative duet co-founded  Sots Art, a new trend that combined traits of American Pop Art and hyperrealism with labels of Social Realism.
In 1974 their Double Self-Portrait was destroyed at the scandalous Buldoser Exhibition. In 1977 both the artists emigrated to Israel and from there to the USA.

Art works by Vitaly Komar are kept in the   Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Metropolitan Museum (New York),     Solomon Guggenheim Museum (New York), the National Center for Contemporary Arts (Moscow), Victoria and Albert's Museum (London), and   Stedelik Museum (Amsterdam).