Leonid Sherwood (1871–1954)

The work of Leonid Vladimirovich Sherwood, a notable Russian and Soviet sculptor who was active in the first half of the 20th century, has only been featured in a solo exhibition once, at the State Russian Museum in 1952, two years prior to his death. The time seems ripe for a new exhibition focused exclusively on Sherwood’s art. Some of the highlights of his pre-1917 work are the inspired sculpted portrait of Alexander Pushkin (1902), a design for Gleb Uspensky’s gravestone (1909), and a memorial to Navy Admiral Stepan Makarov in Kronstadt. Sherwood contributed to Soviet monumental propaganda with his homages to writers Alexander Radishchev and Alexander Herzen while continuing his work in portraiture and memorial statuary, sculpting busts of Anatoly Lunacharsky, Pyotr Voikov, and Joseph Stalin. Sherwood’s monumental statue The Sentry became a signature symbol of Socialist Realism in sculpture.

In this exhibition, artworks from the holdings of the Russian Museum are joined by borrowings from other museums and private collections, and augmented with abundant documentary material and photographs of Leonid Sherwood’s monumental sculptures, including some that have been irretrievably lost. Initiated to coincide with 152 years since the artist’s birth, this exhibition follows extensive research undertaken to elaborate on certain aspects of Leonid Sherwood’s artistic biography and reconstruct the history and destinies of many of his works.