Dmitry Lion

Graphic artist, illustrator, teacher. Born in the family of lawyer and human-rights activist Boris Lion in Kaluga (1925). Studied at School of Art No. 1 in Moscow (1937–41) and the Faculty of Graphic Art of Moscow Institute of Architecture (1942). Fought in the Second World War and served in the Soviet Army (1943–52). Studied under Ivan Chekmazov and Pavel Zakharov at Moscow Institute of Polygraphy (1952–58). Took up studio graphic art (1953). Member of the Municipal Committee of Graphic Artists in Moscow (from 1958). Took up teaching and founded a private academy (1964). Formulated the concept of the light-bearing nature of white (late 1960s–early 1970s). Created a large (180 x 417 cm) graphic triptych in memory of Janusz Korcak (1879–1942), the Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto and died with his young charges at Treblinka Extermination Camp in Poland (1976). Member of the Union of Artists (1977). Lived and worked in Paris (1991). Died in Moscow and buried at the Don Cemetery (1993). Contributed to exhibitions, including Abstraction in Russia: XX Century at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (2001–02) and a one-man show at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1993).