Liubov Semionova

Artist

Liubov Semionova was born in 1945 into a family in central Russia where all women embroidered, so traditional skills and technical secrets passed from generation to generation for over one hundred years. Her grandmother specialized in gold embroidery, which is a most tedious and difficult work. Liubov’s mother in turn taught her and her five sisters to sew and embroider.

In 1963, Liubov finished Art College in Kholuy. Kholuy is small town in central Russia with about 5,000 residents, yet about two-thirds of the town’s inhabitants are artists. Each year only a handful of students graduate from the college, but those who do, complete an intense study program of embroidery and ornament design from most known cultures of the world.

After graduation she began teaching adults for nearly 40 years about colors, composition, design and afterwards how to embroider there own masterpieces. Her students have become experts in their fields. Liubov taught them her secrets and is proud of her students, because she believes their creations are part of her posterity. Many of them now have students of their own and are proud to be students of Liubov Semionova.

During the 1970s and 80s, Liubov worked as major artist-embroiderer for fashion designers in Russia. Her hand and machine embroidered works are well know in Siberia, where she lived at the time.

In 1984, she moved with her family to Lithuania. There she worked as costume designer for 16 years and only after she retired did she finely attain her lifelong dream of painting on silk. Each spring during the past four years she has had solo exhibitions of her silk painting. Although these exhibits usually last four to six weeks, her silk painted scarves sell out within the first few days. Individuals in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, France, Germany, England and United States now wear her hand-painted works. Each work is a unique piece, because Liubov never repeats a design, so each owner of her works knows that it is an individual, unique piece that no one else will ever possess like it.