Leonov Pavel

1920-2011

The world of naïve art classic Pavel Leonov is strikingly honest and recognizable. Tapestry-like compositions of his multifigured panels are segmented, as in Russian icons, and could be read as a story. Leonov thus a kind of recording his own life chronicle. In the end of 1930-s he left the village Volotovskoe and went to the city. He was working on a factory, was a woodcutter, joiner, plasterer and more, he changed a lot of métiers, and the  closest to the art was the job of a decorator. During that time he travelled in Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, and that`s why there is so many types and plots, and may be it is the reason why the road appears in every single composition, as a metaphore of spiritual and existent path.

Nina Lavrisheva