Guenzburg, Ilya Yakovlevich
GUENZBURG, ILYA YAKOVLEVICH
GUENZBURG, ILYA YAKOVLEVICH (1860?–1939), Russian sculptor. Born into a traditional family in Vilna, Guenzburg attracted the attention of Mark *Antokolski at the age of 11, and went with him to St. Petersburg where he studied under Antokolski himself. The art historian V.V. Stasov took an interest in his career. In 1878 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts where he received a gold medal for his "Lament of Jeremiah." After graduation in 1886, he traveled abroad for a year on a scholarship provided by Baron H. *Guenzburg, and returned to St. Petersburg, to continue his work. After the Russian Revolution he founded a Jewish Society at Petrograd for fostering art.
His work falls into three main groups: (1) scenes of children; (2) contemporary writers, artists, and scientists, e.g., Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Pasternak, and Mendeleyev; (3) abstract subjects, busts, and memorials (noted among them were those of Antokolski (in the Jewish cemetery of Leningrad) and that of V.V. Stasov). His sculptures were portrayed with realism, and included A Child Before Bathing and The String (depicting a child playing); both are in the Leningrad Museum. He published his memoirs, Iz moyey zhizni ("From My Life," 1908), which is also of historical value on Jewish life in Russia.
bibliography:
Ost und West (March, 1904); ye, 6 (c. 1910), 534–6.