Yuri Vasiliev studied at the Moscow Art Institute. Surikov at the Faculty of Painting. He devoted a lot of time to studying the theory of painting and technology of materials.
In 1954 he was admitted to the Moscow Union of Artists. Worked in a poster group.
Vasiliev was a member of the commission on materials in the presidium of the USSR Hudfond and chairman of the MOHFA commission on art materials in 1954–1956. In creativity, this was a period called Vasiliev neorealism; during these years, a number of major plot works were created: Don Quixote, Leda, Homunculus, The Old Man and the Sea, The Man and the Watermelon, and others.