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Leonid Isaakovich Vail (12 May 1883 – 23 January 1945) was a painter and art theorist from the Russian Empire. He was born in 
It was during his student years in St.Petersburg that he witnessed the events of the 1905 Bloody Sunday Massacre. According to his manuscripts this had a profound effect on his work, ‘Art in its current form only serves to empower the higher classes, we must look elsewhere if we are to create an art that is our own’.
Vail spent the pre-war years between Germany and Russia, teaching at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and eventually emigrating to Zurich in order to flee rising political tensions. A strong and vocal proponent of the anti-war movement, Vail remained a pacifist his entire life, frequently contributing articles and essays to Russian periodicals, including the communist affiliated Pravda, decrying what he considered an abhorrent misuse of power from all sides.
In Zurich, 1916, Vail attended the inaugural Cabaret Voltaire, where he met the likeminded Dadaists, producing a series of absurdist collages with Tristan Tzara and Sophie Taeuber. Vail’s most politically significant meeting of the time, however, was his passing acquaintance and correspondence with Lenin who often frequented the Zurich Library where Vail would write.
After WWI, Vail lived in France until he was exiled in 1927 for political dissension, at which point all known records and correspondence cease in what was erroneously reported as a political assassination. He was found dead in Mexico City circa 1945, he died of natural causes.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vail, Leonid Isaakovich
Painters from the Russian Empire
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Switzerland
1883 births
1945 deaths
Artists from Vinnytsia
Leonid Isaakovich Vail (12 May 1883 – 23 January 1945) was a painter and art theorist from the Russian Empire. He was born in Vinnytsia
Vinnytsia ( ; uk, Вінниця, ; yi, װיניצע) is a city in west-central Ukraine, located on the banks of the Southern Bug.
It is the administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast and the largest city in the historic region of Podillia. A ...
, in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire, to a family of Russian-Jewish Traders. Vail spent his childhood in Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
, where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school
The Grekov Odesa Art School ( ua, Одеське художнє училище імені Митрофана Грекова; abbreviated ОХУ) is a secondary education institution in Odesa, Ukraine. It is the oldest arts school in the country.
...
, later enrolling at the Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the T ...
, St.Petersburg. Vail began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 17.
It was during his student years in St.Petersburg that he witnessed the events of the 1905 Bloody Sunday Massacre. According to his manuscripts this had a profound effect on his work, ‘Art in its current form only serves to empower the higher classes, we must look elsewhere if we are to create an art that is our own’.
Vail spent the pre-war years between Germany and Russia, teaching at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and eventually emigrating to Zurich in order to flee rising political tensions. A strong and vocal proponent of the anti-war movement, Vail remained a pacifist his entire life, frequently contributing articles and essays to Russian periodicals, including the communist affiliated Pravda, decrying what he considered an abhorrent misuse of power from all sides.
In Zurich, 1916, Vail attended the inaugural Cabaret Voltaire, where he met the likeminded Dadaists, producing a series of absurdist collages with Tristan Tzara and Sophie Taeuber. Vail’s most politically significant meeting of the time, however, was his passing acquaintance and correspondence with Lenin who often frequented the Zurich Library where Vail would write.
After WWI, Vail lived in France until he was exiled in 1927 for political dissension, at which point all known records and correspondence cease in what was erroneously reported as a political assassination. He was found dead in Mexico City circa 1945, he died of natural causes.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vail, Leonid Isaakovich
Painters from the Russian Empire
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Switzerland
1883 births
1945 deaths
Artists from Vinnytsia