Alex Shagin

Alex Shagin is a coin designer.

Shagin, born near Leningrad on 1947, graduated from the Vera Mukhina School of Arts and Design in Leningrad in 1972, and then designed commemorative coins and medallions for the Leningrad Mint. Peter the Great, Michelangelo, Apollo-Soyuz and the Moscow Olympics are but a few of his designs. He emigrated to the United States, and since 1980, has worked as a freelance medallic artist in Southern California.

He has works in museums and private collections around the world, including the Hermitage Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, Yad Vashem Museum, the British Museum and the Swedish Royal Medallic Collection. In 2002, as First Vice President of the American Medallic Sculpture Association (A.M.S.A.) he participated in the Federation Internationale de le Medaille (F.I.D.E.M.) congress by designing a special presentation medal for the American Delegation—The Medal of Liberty presented to twelve individuals by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Each project Alex Shagin designs is a personal tribute to the freedom and democracy he found since immigrating to America from Russia in the 1980s. His work on the Moscow Olympics (1980) and Los Angeles Olympics (1984) led to international recognition culminating in the American Numismatic Society’s Saltus Award in 1995. He has created works for the US Mint, Singapore Mint, Israel Government Mint, American Numismatic Association, Leningrad Mint, The White House (Ronald Reagan) to name a few.

Shagin's principal work has been uniface and two-sided cast bronze medals. He has also produced freestanding medallic art. The classical tradition is the key to his art.

Yuri Barshay and Thomas F. Fitzgerald, with the assistance of Shagin, compiled the following list of his early works issued by the Leningrad Mint:

The following medals and coins are compiled from Coin World archives, with Shagin's favorites listed at the top:

Obverse shows a stylized wig forming a baroque frame in the upper left; reverse design, three musical cherubs in extremely high relief flying above an organ in the upper right; and a side view showing the depth of the sculpturing in the lower left. Mintage was limited to 150 pieces. Medals are hand finished, signed and numbered by the artist.

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