Durso Red Army Composition Figures - The Medical Scene

Michel Klimov, 1905 (Latvia) - 2004 (Liege, Belgium), founder and owner of the Durso Company 1938 - 1988).He was engaged in entrepreneurship in Riga. In 1925, on the recommendation of the Riga Chamber of Commerce, he came to Belgium to carry out a trade deal. He entered the University of Liege, but due to the financial difficulties of his father, he completed only three courses. He worked at the industrial enterprises of Liege. In 1927‒1928 he studied at the Liege Academy of Arts. In 1938 he opened a workshop for the production of miniature historical sculptures - "composition soldiers", created his own trademark and logo: "Durso" (duratum as solidum). Posters, labels and catalogs of Durso were designed by his wife Valentina (Lomagina) Klimova, 1912 (Stavropol) - 1983 (Liege). During the occupation of Belgium by Nazi troops, the Gestapo was repeatedly interrogated for the production of a number of plots (red banner, figures of Russian soldiers), and in 1944 the enterprise was temporary closed. Michel Klimov continued his activity until 1988. He was awarded the Order of Leopold II. Michel Klimov went to great lengths in the design of his figures to create, as accurately as possible, the “real life” subjects he was portraying. Attention to even the most minute detail, was the “standard” of this extraordinary man, and his company. It was a natural evolution from the figures of “soldiers in combat”, for the Durso Company to create the images of wounded, and sometimes dead, “casualties of war”, and those who tended to their fallen Comrades in Arms, (Doctors, Nurses, Fellow Soldiers, etc.). All countries represented by Durso production had “medical” figures, in one form or another, depicted in the Series.(Vincent J. Russo and Patrice Servais "Durso Composition Figures “The Medical Scene”", The Old Toy Soldier Volume 28 Number 1, Spring 2004).