Assembly Hall, Butyrka Prison

Leonid Lamm began his career as an architect, as a protegé of the avant-garde theorist Iakov Chernikhov, but was expelled from the Moscow Council Building Institute in 1947 for associating with dissidents. In 1949, Lamm began painting, working as a book illustrator to support himself. In 1973, he was arrested for applying for permission to emigrate to Israel and was sentenced to three years imprisonment, which he served in Moscow’s notorious Butyrskaia Prison and in a labor camp. In 1982, he immigrated to the United States. Some of the drawings and paintings Lamm created in prison were exhibited in his fi rst solo show in the United States (Firebird Gallery, Alexandria, Va., 1985). In 1998, he was awarded the 2000 Outstanding People of the 20th Century Medal and Diploma (Cambridge, En gland).