Sculptor · Estonia

Aleksander Litvinov

Aleksander Litvinov is an Estonian sculptor whose work moves between intimate small-scale sculpture, public monuments, animal imagery, human figures and abstracted forms drawn from nature.

Trained at Tallinn Art Academy (graduated 1980) and a member of the Estonian Artists’ Union since 1992, he developed his early practice across realism, constructivism and conceptualism. From the 1990s onward, he turned increasingly toward bronze: animals, first treated through anatomy, proportion and movement, later become signs and archetypes through which the human condition can be seen from an unfamiliar angle.

His broader practice also includes stone, concrete, aluminium and monumental projects, where organic shapes, bodily presence, portraiture and civic memory meet – from Woman and the Sea and Infinite Egg to the recent Ülo Sooster memorial project Forms / Vormid on Hiiumaa.

Aleksander Litvinov beside one of his bronze animal sculptures

Selected awards and exhibitions

1988“15 Tallinn Artists”, Malmö, Sweden
1989Solo exhibition, Tallinn Art Salon, Estonia
19981st prize, I Baltic Animal Sculpture Festival, Estonia
20042nd prize, IV Baltic Animal Sculpture Festival, Estonia
2010Grand Prix, International M.C.A., Cannes, France
20111st prize, Alexius II monument competition, Tallinn, Estonia
2012Invited guest of honour, International M.C.A., Cannes, France
2016Solo exhibition, Haus Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia
20161st prize, G. Bõstrov monument competition, Maardu, Estonia
20182nd prize, Heino Eller monument competition, Tartu, Estonia
20241st prize, Sillamäe Museum monument, Estonia
2024Estonian Sculptors’ Union Exhibition, Vernissage Gallery, Tallinn
2025“Hortus Miraculorum – Garden of Wonders” exhibition, Tallinn, Estonia
20261st prize, Ülo Sooster monument competition, Hiiumaa, Estonia
2026SALON PRIVÉ MC, International Art Fair, Monaco

Instinct in motion

The animal body transformed into a sign of pursuit and force

Sculpture is a way to break free from the verbal, although one arrives there through words and reflection. To observe what lies beyond thought is the most desired state; only after that does true art appear.
— Aleksander Litvinov

Cheval rapide, a bronze horse sculpture — Cheval rapide. Bronze. 2012. 50 × 76 cm

Hound, a bronze running hound on a black stone base — Hound. Bronze. 2023. 49 × 29 cm

Nature as archetype

Organic forms translated across bronze, wood and aluminium

The thought that sets the whole process of creating a sculpture in motion must be emotionally powerful. The material – wood, stone or bronze – demands effort from the artist, and only an interesting thought gives the strength for it.
— Aleksander Litvinov

Bronze ring-shaped sculpture on a black stone base

Pale carved wooden column topped with a bird

Three bronze birds standing on a rock-like base

Human figure

The body as vessel, presence and meditative form

The experience of mystery has a particular taste. Thinking about something allows one to notice that something everywhere. At a certain stage this creates a sense of wonder. And here it is impossible to say with certainty where you saw the object of your reflection – inside or outside.
— Aleksander Litvinov

Woman and the Sea, a standing figure carved in pale stone — Woman and the Sea. Stone. 2015. 67 × 20 cm

Dance, a bronze ribbon-like figure on a white base — Dance. Bronze. 2025. 46 × 20 cm

Buddha of Piece, a seated bronze figure outdoors — Buddha of Piece. Bronze. 2023. 120 × 85 cm

The moment of becoming

Presence between play, stillness and transformation

The cat became wary
Who is your master,
the tail I play with?
— Aleksander Litvinov

Leopard plays with its tail, a dark bronze big cat curled around its own tail on a black base — Leopard plays with its tail. Bronze. 2024. 67 × 58 cm

Human

A public figure in which body, wing and branch-like structure meet, turning the park setting into a field of poetic transformation.

A feather flew into a dry bush
and it seems to me –
that it is alive now
— Aleksander Litvinov

Human Iron, a tall dark metal figure with a wing-like form standing on a gravel path in Kadriorg Park — Human Iron. 2025. Height 300 cm. Kadriorg Park, Tallinn, Estonia

From line to volume

Bird and mythic forms born from observed traces

The gaze catches a line on the road or on a scrap of paper, a branch on a tree, the line of smoke from a cigarette. The verbal becomes three-dimensional. This creates a sense of wonder, and one wants to fix it. That is how sculpture appears.
— Aleksander Litvinov

Dragon with Pearl, a grey concrete S-shaped form with a small sphere resting in its curve — Dragon with Pearl. Concrete. 2025. 17 × 26 cm

Walking Raven, a dark bronze raven in angular planes on a black base — Walking Raven. Bronze. 2024. 43 × 40 cm

Animal forms as mirrors

The object as mystery, the animal as sign

The word is bankrupt before the thing; there is always mystery in the object. Yet without the one who looks at something, that something does not exist. When you create an object yourself, it is an attempt to look at the one who is looking and making.
— Aleksander Litvinov

Squirrel, a bronze ring-shaped form with a turquoise oak leaf on a black base — Squirrel. Bronze. 2019. 18 × 14 cm

Panther, a bronze panther lying down with its tail stretched out — Panther. Bronze. 2013. 19 × 68 cm

International recognition

Cannes–Azur and M.C.A. awards

2010: Grand Prix, International M.C.A., Cannes, France.
2012: invited guest of honour at Cannes–Azur.

Poster of the Cannes–Azur 2012 salon showing a bronze horse — Cannes–Azur 2012 salon poster

Gold-coloured Cannes medal engraved “Alexander LITVINOV, Octobre 2010” — Cannes medal, October 2010

Engraved plaque of the 12th Grand Prix International M.C.A., Cannes–Azur, awarded to Alexander Litvinov in 2010 — 12th Grand Prix International M.C.A., 2010

Exhibitions, publications, visibility

A sculptural practice circulating between Estonia and international platforms

Collage of the Cannes ceremony and magazine publications — Cannes ceremony, Univers des Arts and Marmo Machine materials

Vernissage Gallery exhibition: the sculptor beside a bronze animal and views of recent works — Vernissage Gallery exhibition and recent works

Latest monument project: Forms

The sculpture interprets Ülo Sooster’s painterly language, in which colour and form are inseparable. In three-dimensional interpretation, colour acquires volume, and volume becomes an active spatial element.
— Aleksander Litvinov

Visualization of a large reddish bronze sculpture with openings on a square in front of a yellow wooden school building — Visualization of the proposed “Forms” monument in Kärdla, Hiiumaa

Aleksander Litvinov

Sculptor of archetypal forms, bronze animals and public monuments

“To turn the relative into eternal now”
— after Jean-Paul Sartre