Leonid Lerman

Trained as a monument sculptor in Soviet Russia, Lerman's aesthetics were shaped by an impulse for inner-freedom and struggle against conformity.

Born 1953.

Leonid Lerman was born in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1979, he obtained his MFA from the Mukhina College of Art and Design in St. Petersburg. In 1980, he immigrated to the United States. Trained as a monument sculptor in Soviet Russia, Lerman's aesthetics were shaped by an impulse for inner-freedom and struggle against conformity. In the backdrop of Socialist Realism, Lerman also developed an artisticimpulse that emphasizes sensuousness, an identical commitment to reflection and shattering reification, and prioritizing intuition and spirit over likeness and matter. Aside from his previous works, which were rigorously intellectually and visually loaded, his recent works are surprisingly engaging, marked by sketchiness and light humor that shows a new development in his style departing from the dominant trends of contemporary sculpture. Leonid Lerman is a winner of the prestigious James Wilburt Johnson Sculpture Award, has been represented by the McKee Gallery, NYC, for more than ten years, and his shows have taken place in the Duke University Museum of Art in Durham and the Paulo Salvador Gallery, NYC. Lerman participated in the RACC exhibit Dumbo Double Deuce (2001) and 5+5 (1995), curated by Regina Khidekel.