Leonhard Lapin is an Estonian architect, artist and poet. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts as an architect in 1971. He was active in the avant-garde from the 1960s. Since the avant-garde was prohibited during the Soviet period, he could not find work as an architect, nor exhibit his artwork officially. He and like-minded artists organised semi-legal or illegal exhibitions. He was also active in the 1970s, editing manuscript magazines and creating texts and illustrations. Some of his work was shown outside the Soviet Union in Western countries in the 1970s, and it was highly praised. Since 1990, he has been a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, and since 1995 he has been a professor.
