| 1913 |
Born November 11 in Lublin, Poland. His father, Samuil Lembersky, was a mathematician and his mother, Haia Perla, a practicing musician who studied with Franz Liszt. |
| 1914 |
World War I
Lembersky family become refugees and move to Berdichev, Western Ukraine. Samuil Lembersky teaches mathematics and Haia Perla teaches music and foreign languages.
|
| 1917 |
Russian Revolution of 1917
is followed by the Civil War (1918-1921). Ukraine is
volatile and Jewish population is vulnerable to violent
outbursts. |
| 1927-1930 |
Studies Russian and Jewish avant-garde art and attends Kulturlig art school in Kiev. |
| 1930-1933 |
Joins Kiev Drama Theater as a theater set designer. The Great Famine in the Ukraine (1932-33). Soviet Socialist Realism becomes a state policy, and all other artistic directions are banned. |
| 1933-1935 |
Lembersky studies at Kiev
Art Institute. |
| 1935-1941 |
Studies at the Academy of
Arts (Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and
Architecture, LIZhSA). In 1938 tours Nizhny Tagil, an industrial town in the Middle Urals, to collect material for his student thesis. |
| 1941 |
June 22, Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
September, beginning of the Siege of Leningrad (1941-44).
Lembersky wounded during the summer of 1941.
October 1941, the Academy resumes classes. When the thesis review session is held in the besieged Leningrad, the national press calls the event a historic act of valor.
Presents thesis, Workers on Strike at the Urals Plant, and graduates with honors for academic achievement.
Parents perish in Berdichev during the Holocaust. |
| 1942-1944 |
Lembersky is evacuated to
the Urals. He shares his time between Sverdlovsk and
Nizhny Tagil; creates images of the workers, mines and
plants in military production. In Nizhny Tagil he organizes
the Union for the Artists, the school for novice artists
and the art gallery (now Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine
Art). Participates in exhibitions, including “The
Urals Decade” in 1944. |
| 1944 |
Lembersky returns to Leningrad.
Briefly re-enters the Academy to work on post-graduate
thesis on the theme of the Urals workers during the war.
Joins the Leningrad Organization of the Artists Union.
Marries Ludmila (Lucia) Keiserman. Teaches at Tavricheskoe
College. (later Serov Art College). |
| 1946-47 |
Teaches at the Art College (now Saint-Petersburg Nikolai Roerikh Art College) in Leningrad. Offers private art classes at his studio. |
| 1944–54 |
Makes portraits of workers at the Voskov plant in Leningrad, works on State commissions, and heads group projects, including (with Alexander Dashkevich and Nikolai Brandt) a triptych commemorating the life of Czechoslovakian journalist and Resistance leader Julius Fucík. |
| 1955 |
Completes triptych Leaders and Children for Anichkov Palace (the Palace of Youth), where it remains on view until 1993 (current whereabouts unknown). |
| 1956-1957 |
Tours Novgorod and Pskov, towns famed for their historical Christian Orthodox architecture. Works on State-commissioned painting First News: Revolution 1917. |
| 1958 |
He travels to paint in Nizhny
Tagil. |
| 1960 |
Organizes a two-person exhibition with sculptor Mikhail Vayman at LOSKh. |
| 1959-1964 |
Completes Railway Pointer and Miners paintings (current whereabouts unknown). Makes paintings of Staraya Ladoga, a medieval town close to Ladoga Lake near Leningrad (during the Siege, when frozen the lake offered an escape route and became known as the Road of Life). |
| 1950s-1960s |
At formal gatherings of artists, speaks out for greater freedom in Soviet art. Organizes unofficial exhibitions of young artists. Teaches painting and drawing at LISI (Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Building) and the Palace of Culture for Professional Unions.
Creates works on paper on a tour of Dzintari, Latvia (current location of these works unknown). |
| 1970 |
Lembersky dies in Leningrad
on December 2. A memorial exhibition of his work is presented at LOSKh. |
