Leonid Alekseevich Sokolov was born in St. Petersburg in 1945 into a family of painters. His grandfather, Konstantin Sokolov, was one of the founders of St. Petersburg Society of Encouragement of Artists (now called the Union of Painters). His father, Aleksei Konstantinovich Sokolov, was a well-known painter and professor of the Repin Institute of Art. He was an awarded Honored Artist of Russia with works in many major museums. Leonid’s mother, Galina Fedorovna Sokolova, nee Pashutina, is an art historian; she graduated from the Leningrad Academy of Arts and worked at the Museum of Theater and Music Arts.
Leonid Sokolov graduated in 1971 from the V. I. Mukhina School of Art, where he earned the designation “Painter of Decorative Applied Art.” In 1975 he became a member of the Russian Union of Artists and began regularly exhibiting his works in St. Petersburg and other cities in international symposiums and shows. He has participated in more than 100 exhibitions. His works have been exhibited in France, Germany, and the United States, where he had a personal exhibition in 1997.
Leonid Sokolov’s works, mostly paintings on porcelain, are kept at differnet museums of St. Petersburg, as well as in other cities in Russia and abroad. Among other museums that have acquired his works are the Museum of the History of the City, the State Museum of Theater and Music Art, Pushkin’s Memorial Apartment, and the All-Russia Memorial Reserve “Mikhailovskoye”.
For nearly forty years, Sokolov worked at the Experimental Porcelain Factory that had until recently maintained commercial production of objects he had designed.
Recently he began teaching as an assistant professor at the Institute of Design and Service Technologies.
In 1994, he and his father were artists-in-residence at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee. That same year, he won an international competition which allowed him to travel and work in Germany.
In the fall of 1996, he returned to Southern Adventist University where he taught a class and once again exhibited his work.
He was awarded the title of corresponding member of the Academy of Humanities in 1999.
The works of Leonid Sokolov are remarkable for the purity of style, high professionalism, and a unique manner of painting on porcelain combining different techniques of under- and over-glaze painting.
Sokolov is married to Galina I. Pogodina, a senior research fellow of the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theater and Music Art. His son Aleksei will soon graduate from the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His daughter Natalia is a student of the Philology Department of St. Petersburg State University.
