The Great Artist of Our Time Leonid Afremov
The great artist Leonid Afremov was born in Vitebsk. And it is not surprising that Marc Chagall became his idol. The works of this particular artist inspired Leonid for his bright paintings. He also liked the works of Picasso and Dali. Leonid began painting while still a schoolboy and even participated in school exhibitions. He started selling his paintings very early and realized that this was a pretty profitable business.
The entire Leonid’s life was dedicated to art. After graduating from art school, he began working as a designer at a brewery and then as a stage designer at a theater. After the Chernobyl disaster, Leonid and his family – he was married to Inessa Kagan and their first son Dmitry was born a year after their marriage, eight years later Boris was born – decided to leave his native Vitebsk. The liberalization of the policy of the Soviet state allowed them to move to Leonid’s historical homeland – to Israel. It happened in 1990.
At the new place of residence, Leonid continued to create paintings and organized exhibitions. His first exhibition was quite small and included only 20 paintings. New life turned to be not so easy as it seemed – sometimes he couldn’t afford to buy even brushes and paints. After 2 years, the things went better, primarily due to the sale of paintings. At the same time, the artist began to master his own technique – he used a palette knife to create his paintings. Most of his works were created using this particular tool. As a result, Leonid accumulated enough paintings to open his own gallery – this happened in 1995.
In 2002, the family moved to the United States, first to New York and then to Fort Lorddale. And finally in 2010 Leonid found his paradise on Earth – the popular Mexican resort town called Playa del Carmen where he died of cardiac arrest in 2019. It was there that his most striking works were painted. Painting took almost all of his time. He not only drew himself, but also taught others to draw – his workshop was always full of paintings that he put up for sale on large Internet sites.
And now let's take a closer look at Leonid’s works. In his collection you can find paintings of almost any genre – portraits, landscapes, still lifes... We see that in all of his paintings he tried to use as many colors as possible – his painting style can be rightfully called impressionism. And of course, the artist's favorite season was autumn – namely in this season we find the largest possible number of colors created by nature itself. Leonid Afremov's task was to emphasize this beauty. And he did it masterfully – in many of his paintings we can find multi-colored confetti using which he depicted everything around – houses, trees, sky...
Throughout his life, the artist has visited many countries and he conveyed his impressions through his paintings – in his art gallery we find the works with images of European and American cities. As for the paintings depicting animals, here we can note an abundance of portraits of cats – Leonid adored these fluffy creatures. We also should note his seascapes with the image of yachts – they are filled with calmness and confidence, as well as graceful paintings with the portraits of ballerinas, where we also find a lot of vibrant colors. There are not so many still life paintings in Leonid’s collection, but they are also full of bright colors.
Separately, it is worth noting his paintings on musical topics – among them are the portraits of great musicians, primarily jazzmen. Leonid Afremov loved jazz – he painted both simple musicians and jazz masters. Sometimes, instead of people, he portrayed cats. So he combined two of his favorite topics.
Leonid Afremov, like many other male artists, had a special skill of portraying the beauty of a female body – in his collection there are quite a few paintings in the nude style – from the most frank to modest with hidden nudity. Also Leonid Afremov depicted dances – from tango to ballet. Thanks to the use of many bright colors – they always turned out to be very lively.
We hope that you have received sufficient information about the works of Leonid Afremov and that you will be as inspired by his paintings as we are.
