BORN in Riga to a hemp merchant and his wife, Vera Mukhina (1889-1953) was destined to become one of the most eminent Soviet sculptors.

She created many monuments and busts of Russian and Soviet artists and intellectuals, including of Maxim Gorky and of Pyotr Tchaikovsky; but her greatest work was her 24-meter monument The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 Paris World Fair.

Mukhina was no stranger to Paris. After first studying art in Moscow with several artists including K Yuon, N Sinitsyna and I Maskov, in 1912 she set off for Paris, then the Mecca of contemporary art, where she studied for two years under the eminent sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle.