Leonov Pavel Petrovich (Russian: Павел Петрович Леонов; 20 December 1920 25 March 2011) was a leading naive artist

Naïve art

Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...

 of the Soviet period.

Biography

Pavel Leonov was born in Orlovsky district in USSR in the village Volotovskoye. He lived under pressure of despotic father. In 1938 he was arrested for the first time. He started to paint in 1950. In 1960 he learned in ZNUI and his teacher was Roginsky. In 1980 he stopped to work as artist, resuming in 1990. In 1990 he became internationally famous.
He was married to Zina (d. 2006) and has a son named Sergei.

Collections

• Vladimir-Suzdal museum
• Zarizino museum, Moscow
• Moscow museum of naive art
• Horvatskaia national gallery.
• Museum Charlotte Zander (Germany).

Personal exhibitions

• 2010 — «Павел Леонов» (Из собр. К. Богемской и А. Турчина). Галерея ROZA AZORA, Москва.
• 2005 — «Павел Леонов». Московский музей современного искусства, Москва.

Exhibitions

• Insita 97, Bratislava, Slovakia.
• Golden dream «Сон Золотой», 1993, Moscow
• many exhibitions in gallery «Дар» in 1990th,
• Covcheg galery галерея Ковчег (1999),
• Lost Paradise «Потерянный рай» (Проун галерея, 2005),
• Art fair Art-Moscow ярмарка Арт-Москва (2008),
• Art fair Art-Manege ярмарка Арт-Манеж (многократно).
• Festnaive -07 Участник Московских международных фестивалей наивного искусства и творчества аутсайдеров «Фестнаив — 2004» и «Фестнаив — 2007».
• St Etienne gallery New York, 2001, 2003
• Ziv gallery,Edinbourg 1997
• Hamer gallery, Amstedam1999
• Museum Charlotte Zander (Germany), 1999
• Roza Azora gallery Moscow, 2010

Publication: Огонёк, Коммерсант, Raw vision.