Details

Name

Eduard Bersudsky

Brief Biography

born 1939, Russian

Occupation

Mechanical Sculptor

Description

Eduard Bersudsky is a sculptor-mechanic and specialises in creating kinetic sculptures made from wood and mechanical machinery. He built the Millennium Clock for the Royal Museum in Edinburgh (in cooperation with Tim Stead and others) and most recently, a kinetic sculpture of St Mungo for the Tron Steeple in Glasgow.
He was born in St Petersburg in 1939 and is a former electrician. His work as an artist began in Russia where he attended evening classes for drawing and sculpture and educated himself by reading art books at the libraries and visiting museums and exhibitions. Eduard started exhibiting his sculptures in exhibitions of non-conformist art – a movement of artists who wanted to avoid the control of official ideology in the former Soviet Union. In the beginning of perestroika he founded his company Sharmanka with his theatre director wife Tatyana Jakovskaya. They soon left Russia because of the increasing economic depression and the withdrawal of local authorities’ support for the arts and moved the company to Scotland.
Sharmanka performs a daily one-hour mechanical ballet involving about 30 of Eduard’s moving sculptures to audiences in its Glasgow studio, as well as touring nationally and internationally. It has gained a reputation as one of the Glasgow’s hidden treasures.