Leo Mol was a sculptor whose bronzes earned a distinguished place on Parliament Hill, in Vatican museums and in his beloved home of Winnipeg.
Long-time friend and art dealer David Loch described Mr. Mol's gift: "Leo always [sculpted]from life and in doing that, then captured the character of the individual. A lot of portraits you see they're so stiff, they just leave me stone cold - they're not even a likeness, really, but how do you get the character to come out in a piece of sculpture?"
Mr. Mol died on July 4 in Winnipeg at 94 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for several years.
His work included paintings, drawings, porcelain figurines and stained glass windows, but he is best known for his bronze sculptures.
They include lifelike interpretations of world leaders such as the Queen and Winston Churchill, both located in a Winnipeg sculpture garden, John Diefenbaker on Parliament Hill, and three popes in Vatican museums.
The sculpture garden features roughly 300 works, including bronze casts of people and animals outdoors, and oil paintings and pastels in an indoor gallery.
He was born Leonid Molodozhanyn in Polonne, Ukraine, on Jan. 15, 1915. He studied art in Leningrad from 1936 to 1940, and later continued his studies in the Netherlands in 1943. He fled war-ravaged Europe for good several years later, moving to Winnipeg in the late 1940s .
"Canada was a place where at last Leo felt safe. And Canada was forever then his home," Mr. Loch said.
"The foundry in Germany where he worked so closely for all those years, Leo told me one day they had said to him, 'Don't go back to Canada just stay here, we can get you all the commissions that you would ever need, you would never have to look for work.' And Leo said, 'No, Canada's my home.' And his home in Canada was Winnipeg."
Art collector Dan Orlikow has amassed about 30 paintings, sculptures and other pieces of art by Mr. Mol over the past dozen years.
"I first liked his paintings because I found that they were really representational of the Manitoba scenery, the nature of Manitoba, the topography and that sort of resonated with me," Mr. Orlikow said.
"He's very unknown for the paintings and people may be interested to know that he went on sketching trips with the members of the Group of Seven. I have a painting he did with A.Y. Jackson in 1967, and I've seen the painting by A.Y. Jackson and I like the Leo Mol one better."
Mr. Loch described Mr. Mol - who was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 1989 and received the Order of Manitoba in 2000 - as a man of great humility, noting he at times spent hours discussing his work with clients.
"Leo was never a materialistic man, he was never interested in money. He was only interested in his work," Mr. Loch said.
"The amazing thing for me was always he was able to achieve all that out of Winnipeg, which again just speaks volumes of the man himself because it's not the easiest city to maybe do it out of, considering he was doing world-class figures."
He leaves his wife, Margareth.
The Canadian Press