And I Grew up in a Foreign Land

Lel Mykolaiovych Kuzminkov was a Ukrainian artist, graphic artist, sculptor of Greek origin, and a member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine since 1960 and the Mariupol Society of Greeks. Born on October 8, 1925 in Mariupol (now Donetsk region, Ukraine), from 1947-1951 he studied at the Kharkiv Art School under Mykola Slipchenko, Lev Fitilov, and Petro Shyhymaha. Since 1951, he worked as an artist and monumentalist in the art workshops of the Mariupol Society of Artists. Kuzminkov worked in the field of easel painting, book graphics, monumental and decorative art, creating landscapes and a number of self-portraits and mosaic panels. He created graphic works for the editions of "Kobzar" by Taras Shevchenko in Greek and the edition of "Kamenyari" by Ivan Franko in Greek. Kuzminkov participated in city, regional, and all-Ukrainian art exhibitions starting in 1957. Among his works are the paintings "Self-Portrait" (1952), "Steep Shore. Boats" (1950s), "Gornovy" (1958), "Steelworks" (1960, 1968), "Poet A. Shapurma", and the series of paintings "Lithuania"; the mosaics "Harvest Festival" (facade of the culture house in the village of Urzuf, 1967), "People of Vazhmash" (1971), and "Young Man. Girl. Family." (1976); monuments in collaboration with V.K. Konstantinov to the poet Georgy Kostoprav in the village of Maloyanisol (1992), to Metropolitan Ignatius in Mariupol (1998), the architectural and sculptural composition "The Liberator Warrior" (Mariupol, 2001), and others. His works are kept in museums of the Donetsk region and in private collections in Belgium, Greece, Ukraine, France. He died on March 15, 2012 in Mariupol.