Gelberg, Sеmen Aronovich (Gelbergs, Semjons)

Sеmen Aronovich Gelberg was a Soviet graphic artist, painter and etcher. Although he was known as a Latvian artist, he was born into a family of carpenters and was of Ukrainian descent. From 1930 to 1933, he studied architecture at the Minsk Polytechnic Institute and then he transferred to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) where he graduated in 1940 from the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (a.k.a., Academy of Arts). During the Second World War, Gelberg defended Leningrad and he was appointed deputy chief of the Road of Life on Lake Ladoga. After the war, he re-located to the Latvian SSR and studied at the Art Academy of Latvia. Thereafter, the artist lived and worked in Riga.