Soviet sculptor Zair Azgur 1908-1995

The bust of Rabindranath Tagore. Work by Soviet sculptor Zair Azgur (1908-1995). Granite, 1956, the hall of the National Art Museum of Belarus
Soviet sculptor Zair Azgur
Academician of the USSR Academy of Arts (1958), Corresponding Member (1947), Hero of Socialist Labor (1978), People’s Artist of the USSR (1973), Azgur was the winner of two Stalin Prize of the second degree (1946, 1948), and member of the Communist Party since 1943. His works are in the collections of the National Art Museum, the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Memorial Museum – workshop of Zair Isaakovich Azgur (Minsk, Belarus), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Astrakhan Regional Picture gallery (Astrakhan, Russian Federation), the art museum of Moldova and others.
Zair Azgur was born on 2 January 1908 in the village of Molchany of Mogilev province (now Vitebsk region of Byelorussia), into a Jewish family. He graduated from the Vitebsk Art Practical Institute in 1925, his teachers were Y. Pen and MA Kerzin. In 1925-1928 Zair studied at Higher Artistic – Technical Institute in Leningrad; Art Institute of Kiev and Tbilisi Academy of Fine Arts (1928-1929).