Born in Leningrad, USSR in 1946.

Graduated from the Artistic Ceramics and Glass Department of Leningrad’s Mukhina Higher College of Industrial Design in 1969.
 
Specialist in artistic ceramics (sculpture and three-dimensional compositions), graphic art, as well as monumental art (mosaic, metal, ceramics) and graphic design. Since 1996 books have played an important part in his creative output, with ceramic elements being used as an organic component of a book’s artistic look. In the 1970s–80s, Kopylkov organized the main exhibitions of artistic ceramics in Leningrad. Participant in numerous exhibitions, competitions, and symposia in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the UK, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Poland, the USA, Czechoslovakia, Romania, France and South Korea. Winner of a gold medal at the 6th International Artistic Ceramics Competition (Vallauris, France, 1978) and first prize at the All-Union Symposium of Landscape Ceramics (Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, 1988). Awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2007). Member of the Artists’ Union of Russia since 1975.
   
His works can be found in the State Hermitage Museum, State Russian Museum and Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied, and Folk Art, the International Museum of Ceramics in Hungary, the Laveno International Museum of Ceramic Design (Palazzo Perabo, Laveno Mombelo, Italy), and the Art Museum at Northern Arizona University, as well as in private collections in Russia, the UK, Hungary, Italy, the USA, Ukraine, France and South Korea.