Zair Azgur

Born Jan. 2 (15), 1908. Soviet sculptor, People’s Artist of the Byelorussian SSR (1944), member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1958). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Azgur studied at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (beginning in 1925) and at the Kiev Arts Institute (1928–29). In 1943 he made portraits of such heroes of the Great Patriotic War as A. I. Rodimtsev, A. I. Molodchii, and M. F. Sel’nitskii, which earned him the USSR State Prize in 1946. He also sculpted portraits of such revolutionaries as G. Babeuf (plaster, 1931–33) and F. E. Dzerzhinskii (1947, USSR State Prize in 1948) as well as portraits of such cultural leaders as Lu Hsün (1953). All these works are now housed in the Tret’iakov gallery in Moscow, except the portrait of Babeuf, which has not been preserved. Azgur was the creator of several memorials to V. I. Lenin (in the village of Kashino of the Moscow Oblast, 1957, and others). He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and a number of medals.