artist biography

Leo Mol was born Leonid Molodozhanyn at Polonne, Ukraine in 1915. The son of a potter, Mol sculpted from an early age, and continued his artistic training in Leningrad before his conscription during the second world war. Mol fled to The Hague in 1945, then to Saskatchewan in 1948 with his wife, where he found work on a grain farm for a brief period before setting out for Winnipeg in 1949. In Winnipeg, Mol found himself work as a church muralist, and soon became a prominent mural and stained glass artist, creating over 80 windows for churches across the area, and held his first ceramics exhibition shortly after arrival. Shortly after his arrival, he also began capturing distinctly Canadian scenes in sculpture: square dancers, skiers, curlers and more, embracing the cultures surrounding him with characteristic enthusiasm. He was a noted and beloved leader in the Ukrainian Canadian community in Manitoba and beyond. In 1992, the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden was established at Assiniboine Park after he donated more than 300 sculptures to the city of Winnipeg. His work ethic and drive to create was well known by anyone that knew him, as was his humble nature about his prominence in Canadian art: "Sometimes I feel a little bit like an outcast," he noted, "(but) art is serving the community in a spiritual form . . . and I like to serve the silent majority."