One of Manitoba's most prolific and famous artists died Saturday at the age of 94.
Leo Mol was a world-renown sculptor whose works are scattered from Portage and Main to the Vatican, and whose autonomous sculpture garden in Assiniboine Park is North America's largest devoted to a single artist.
"It's a great loss," said Brenda Bracken-Warwick, executive director of Partners in the Park, which runs the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden. "We used to see him on a regular basis. He loved to just sit in the garden or the gallery and talk about the pieces."
David Loch, the sculptor's dealer and longtime friend, said Mol really had a gift.
"The work just flowed out of him and the piece just appeared before your eyes," he said. "I don't know how he accomplished what he accomplished in one lifetime."
Mol's resume is indeed impressive.
His works include thousands of sculptures mostly made of bronze but also of marble, terra cotta and ceramic, as well as stained glass windows, pottery and paintings.
His subjects have included famous artists, nobles, politicians and even popes, and his works can be seen everywhere from the Vatican to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., which houses Mol's likeness of former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower.
"He actually made the mold in Eisenhower's kitchen while Eisenhower helped," Loch said.
Mol, a Ukrainian immigrant born Leonid Molodozhanyn, was inducted into the inaugural class of the Order of Manitoba and also holds membership in the Order of Canada.
In 1992, Loch and Hartley Richardson succeeding in getting the city to open the Mol sculpture garden and gallery in Assiniboine Park.
The facility is home to more than 300 Mol works.
"When you walk through that garden, you still see the man. He lives through the work," Loch said.
Winnipegger Georgina Cielen visited the garden Monday, partly in reaction to the news that Mol - whom she knew - had died.
"He was a legendary type of person," she said. "There are very few who are that good in art."
