Lei Yixin

Lei Yixin Chinese: 雷宜锌
Lei Yixin standing in front of his sculpture Stone of Hope at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Born	1954 Changsha, Hunan, China
Occupation	Sculptor
Known for	Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

Lei Yixin (born 1954) is a prominent Chinese sculptor. Yixin designed the Stone of Hope, the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. at the King Memorial near the United States National Mall.

Lei was born to a family of scholars in Changsha, Hunan, China.

Lei was one of millions of "bourgeois educated youth" sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. As a way to develop a skill other than farming during the seven years he spent toiling in the fields, Lei started drawing. His diary became his scrapbook, with a few lines of comments of his drawings. When Lei applied to college, he submitted the diary as his portfolio.

Lei was among the first class of students after the Cultural Revolution to be able to go to art school in 1978; he graduated in 1982.

He first found work in a publishing company as a draughtsman, but was spotted by a local government official, who asked and encouraged him to build monuments.

Lei won top prizes in national competitions three consecutive years, and was recognized as a master sculptor, which came with a lifetime stipend from the Chinese government. He has sculpted some 150 public monuments, including statues of Mao Zedong. Some of his works are in China's National Art Gallery collection. Lei came to the attention of the American public when he was named artist-of-record and commissioned to sculpt the centerpiece for the proposed monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The announcement of Lei spurred an international protest spearheaded by Gilbert Young and Lea-Winfrey Young, co-founders of the organization "King Is Ours", a multi-racial and multi-cultural organization formed to protest the decisions made by the King Memorial Project Foundation which included choosing Lei without due process. According to Agence France-Presse, it was only by chance that memorial organizers found Lei when they visited an international granite-carving festival in the American state of Minnesota. Lei was "discovered" under a tree, taking a nap after he was pointed out to the King Memorial Project Foundation committee with the words, "you should talk to that guy over there," pointing to Lei.