Portrait of the artist's wife

myminifactory

Born on July 11, 1879, in Garonskis Manor House near Lake Jugla, Dreiliņu Parish. He attended Riga City High School before enrolling in the Saint Petersburg Art and Industry Academy in 1897. Training ended in 1905 after winning a scholarship that took him to Paris. There, like contemporaries Gustav Skilters and Theodore Zalkalns, he learned from Auguste Rodin's artistic principles. Woodpecker joined Latvian artists' union Dwarf and participated in art exhibitions starting in 1910. After World War I ended in 1918, he returned to Latvia and took on leadership roles at the National Museum of Art (1920-1944) and the Latvian Academy of Applied Sculpture (1922-1944), organizing cultural events. At the end of World War II in 1944, Woodpecker fled to Germany before emigrating to the United States in 1950. He passed away on August 17, 1966, in Dayton, Ohio.