Leo Mol
- Year inducted
- 1990
- Area of recognition
- Arts
- Related websites
Sculptor/Artist
Leo Mol was born in the Ukraine in 1915. He studied in the Kunst Adademie, Berlin, Germany and the Academy of Art, the Hague, Netherlands, and then in 1948 he made his home in Canada.
A number of sculptures have been commissioned by various institutions: The Canadian Government; the provincial governments of Alberta and Manitoba; the University of Manitoba; St. Clemens University in Rome, Italy; Leo Mol’s junior high school, Tacherting, Bavaria, Germany; and a technical high school in Eindhoven, Holland. He has also designed and executed over 80 stained-glass windows.
As winner of international competitions, Mol has commissioned for a monument to Taras Shevchenko in Washington, D.C., which was unveiled in June, 1964 and a monument to the same poet in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was unveiled in November 1971.
Among the many busts he has executed are those of John D. Diefenbaker, former Prime Minister of Canada; General Dwight E. Eisenhower, Pope Paul VI; Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul II, also an over life-size portrait figure of the Pontiff in Altotting, Germany, Cardinals Slipyi and Tisserant; and Group of Seven painters A. Y. Jackson, Fred Varley, and A. J. Casson.
His work can be found in permanent collections in the Hamilton Art Gallery, the McMichael Canadian Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario; the Ontario Art Gallery; the Riveredge Foundation, Calgary; the Peter Whyte Gallery, Banff; and the Vatican and the collection of Modern Religious Art in the Vatican Museums. Mol’s pieces can also be found in private collections throughout Canada, the United States, England, Germany, Italy and Holland.
In 1989, Leo Mol offered his personal collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings and ceramics to the City of Winnipeg on condition a sculpture garden be built to display his work. In 1992 the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden was opened in Assiniboine Park.
Mol has been a member of many artist organizations such as past-president of the Manitoba Society of Artists; member and past vice-president of the Sculptors’ Society of Canada. He was also a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts; a member of the Allied Artists of America; a member of the Munchener Kunstlergenossenschaft, West Germany; and a LL.D. at the Universities of Winnipeg, Alberta, Edmonton, and Manitoba.