Selected dates:

February 5, 1923

Born in Vitebsk . He graduated from the 7th grade of the school, then the factory school, worked at a shoe factory.

1943

He was mobilized in the Red Army at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, at the age of 18, participated in the battles for liberation from the Nazi invaders, crossed the Pripyat River, fought on the Kursk Bulge. In the battle for Mozyr he was seriously wounded . These events further influenced his work, determined the stylistic characteristics and semantic content of his painting. He was seriously wounded in the battle near Mozyr. I met the victory in the Cossack corps in the south of Ukraine.

Shchemelev began to comprehend art in his native Vitebsk, but professionally touched the brush only after the front.

1952

Graduated from the Minsk Art College .

1959

Graduated from the Belarusian Theater and Art Institute, now the Belarusian State Academy of Arts . He was in the group of the first graduates of the Belarusian Theater and Art Institute, who later became classics of the Belarusian art school.

1964

He became a member of the Union of Artists of the BSSR, now the Belarusian Union of Artists .

1959-1966

He worked as a teacher at the Minsk Art College.

1968-1974

He worked as a teacher at the Republican Boarding School for Music and Fine Arts named after Akhremchik.

1975-1977

He worked as a teacher at the Faculty of Architecture of the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, now the Belarusian National Technical University.

1977-1982

He served as the first secretary of the Board of the Union of Artists of the BSSR.

1983

Received the title of People's Artist of Belarus .

1982-1986

Chairman of the Board of the Art Fund of the BSSR.

1983-1987

Member of the Board of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

1992-2002

Member of the Board of the Belarusian Union of Artists.

1993

Awarded with the Francysk Skaryna medal .

2002-2005

Chairman of the Board of the Belarusian Union of Artists.

2003

A municipal (state) city art gallery of works by Leonid Shchemelev was opened in Minsk, more than 90 works donated by the author of the city are presented in the gallery on a permanent basis. Until 2013, the gallery was headed by art critic Tatyana Bembel.

The works are in the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the National Center for Contemporary Arts of the Republic of Belarus, in the funds of the Belarusian Union of Artists and the Ministry of Culture of Russia, the Tretyakov Gallery and the Central House of Artists exhibition association in Moscow, the Zhilbel Gallery, in all regional local history museums of Belarus .

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The artist about his practice:

"There was a very rich cultural life in pre-war Vitebsk: silent films, a circus, palaces of culture, clubs. As a child, I read avidly, began to draw: I copied reproductions of famous artists, tried to paint from nature. And the people in the city lived special. Once I happened to meet by Yuri Moiseevich Pan himself, in whose workshop, oddly enough, one could come without an invitation. The maestro even looked at my drawings. And he said: "Good, but there is still a lot to learn."

“Battle scenes were of little interest to me. I have always been interested in psychological stories about what happens to a person in war, when, risking his life, he goes to defend his homeland. He goes, overcoming fear, pain, horror, suffering, death. By and large, in my paintings - the denial of war as such."

"I have always tried to reflect in canvases my personal view of what surrounds me, the past and present of the country. I embodied my vision of the world, my feelings in artistic images, including in the images of relatives and friends, nature - what is close to me and expensive. I'm not a landscape painter in the narrow sense of the word: I love a thematic landscape in which you can express thoughts "about time and about yourself" no worse than in any genre composition. And the greatest pleasure is when you manage to convey to the viewer your attitude to the beauty of what he saw. And one more thing: I am sure that art should bring positive, the desire to live. If a person who sees a picture becomes warmer and more joyful in his soul, then the goal has been achieved. "