02.05.2019

May 2, 2019 is the 160th jubilee of the birth of Leopold Bernshtam, an outstanding sculptor and portrayer

Leopold Bernshtam is one of the greatest sculptors of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, an outstanding portrayer.

He advocated a realistic tradition in his work, striving first to achieve similarities, reaching the smallest details. At the same time, according to A. Taizé apt expression, “unconsciously for himself, in addition to his worship of realism, he finds something weightless, something invisible to others, something impressionable ... This weightless thing is that flickering light of individuality that distinguishes his portrait style from another one...”.

Leopold Adolfovich Bernshtam worked in the field of indoor and monumental sculpture. The main genre throughout his work was a portrait. He participated in competitions for the monuments to M. I. Glinka (1903), Alexander II (1911) and Alexander III (1913) for St. Petersburg. The author of the monuments to the comedy dramatist E. Peyleron in Paris (1906), G. Berlioz in Monte-Carlo (1907), Gustave Flaubert in Rouen (1907), A. S. Pushkin in Tsarskoe Selo (installed in 1937), as well as sculptural compositions-memorials “Peter I and Louis XV” in Peterhof (1902), “Peter I rescuing the drowning in Lahta” in St. Petersburg (1907), “Peter I - carpenter” in Saardam and St. Petersburg (1910), “Peter I leaning on a tower " in Vyborg (1910). He performed a number of works on biblical and mythological plots (“The First Arrow”, 1889; “Christ and the Sinner”, 1894; “The Snakes Charmer”, 1895).

Works of Bernshtam are stored in many museums’ collections, in particular in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, Versailles and others.

For the 160th anniversary of Leopold Bernshtam, we have prepared a photo albumof his works, which are stored in the Museum Collection.

The sculptor's biography is in the section "Authors".

Ref.: A.Taizé "In the workshop of the sculptor Bernshtam" // In the world of arts. 1907. No.19. P. 8–10.