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Idel
Yankelevich

Biography and information

CDI (Idel Benjamenovich) Yankelevich (Yiddish ייִדל יאַנקעלעװיטש; FR. and rum. Idel Ianchelevici; 5 may 1909, Leova, Tighina County Bessarabia province — June 28, 1994, Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France) — Belgian and French sculptor and graphic. Special famous are his monumental urban compositions.

CDI Yankelevich was born in the border of the Bessarabian town of Leova (now the regional center Leova district, Moldova) in a large Jewish family. Early left without a mother, grew up in Chisinau. From 1928 he studied at the faculty of medicine in Liege (Belgium); then returned to Bessarabia, and served in the Romanian army (1929-1931), after demobilization, he finally settled in liège and began teaching at Académie des Beaux-Arts de la Ville, where in 1933 he received the first prize for the art of sculpture (premier prix de statuaire, à l Académie des Beaux-Arts de Liège). In the same year married and settled in Brussels.

In the following years he exhibited in numerous exhibitions in European cities and tel Aviv, participated in the design of the Romanian pavilion at the Exposition internationale universelle in Brussels. Created the famous "Diver" (Plongeur — diver) and his arch for l'exposition Internationale de l'eau in Liege in 1939.

In 1945, later famous sculpture Yankelevich "Calling" (l'appel, 1939) was set in La Louvière and he soon gained wide popularity. National monument to the political prisoner work Yankelevich was installed at Fort Breendonck, near Antwerp, who in the years of the Nazi occupation was used as a transit camp for political prisoners and Jews of Belgium. In 1950-e years worked in Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, mainly in the field of monumental sculpture. In Haifa, was working on the memorial complex of the Galician Jewry, and a monument to the rebirth of Israel. In Bucharest, installed his sculpture "L aînée". Monuments of the work of Yankelevich is also available in tel Aviv, new York, San Francisco, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Paris, Kinshasa, liège, Anvers and other cities. From 1950 to the end of life is constantly lived in Maison-Laffitte (Yvelines Department in the île-de-France).