Leonid Shchemelev (1923 - 2021) - People's Artist of Belarus (1983), Honored Artist of Belarus (1973), winner of the State Prize of the BSSR (1982), laureate of the Union State Prize in Literature and Art (2010), student of the outstanding master Vitaly Tsvirko. Awarded with the Orders of Great Patriotic War I and II degree, medals, award pin of the Belarusian Ministry of Culture "For Contribution to the Development of Belarusian Culture" (2003). Holder of the Order of Francysk Skaryna (2001) and Minsk citizen of the year (2003).
Born on February 5, 1923, in Vitebsk. In his youth, in the distant 1930s, Leonid Shchemelev managed to show his first drawings to Yudel Pan, the teacher of Marc Chagall, and get his approval for serious engagement in art. But to continue creativity prevented the Great Patriotic War.
Leonid Shchemelev was mobilized into the army at the age of 18. He went through the war from the first to the last day, participated in the fighting for the liberation of Belarus from the German invaders. In October 1943 he was badly wounded in the battle near Mozyr.
Graduated from the Minsk Art School in 1952 and the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in 1959. Member of the Belarusian Union of Artists since 1964. Worked as a teacher at the Minsk Art School (1959-1966), the Akhremchik Republican Boarding School for Music and Fine Arts (1968-1974), the architectural department of the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute (1975-1977, now the Belarusian National Technical University). Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Artists from 2002 to 2005.
Leonid Shchemelev worked in all genres of easel painting. Portraits, landscapes, still lifes are painted in an emotional and figurative manner. In his works poetry and history, city streets and rural landscapes, pain of war and joy of victory are intertwined.
Much in his life and work quite ambiguous and even paradoxical. And that allows us to say that Leonid Shchemelev - not just an artist with perfect pictorial techniques, but also a man with an extraordinary energy, a tremendous love of life. As Shchemelev himself says about himself, he is an artist of his time, a historian, critic and observer at the same time.
