Leontiev Leonid is a painter, the People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR, and the Honoured Art Worker of the Kazakh SSR.

He was born in St. Petersburg. From 1932 to 1939 he studied at the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the All-Russian Academy of Arts, where his teachers were E. Lanseray and B. Ioganson. Since 1939 he lived and worked in Alma-Ata.

The 1960s proved to be the most fruitful period in the artist’s oeuvre. The artist falls under the charm of the Impressionists. His palette became brighter and had got an expression of form and colour. Leontief’s paintings are imbued with a sense of joyousness, infused with air and light. One of the works from this period is the Boats from the museum collection.