Then a travel journalist, Peretz Hirshbein, wrote an article about the unique gift of self-taught Isaac to the newspaper, which made Itkind famous and eventually brought him to Vilno (now Vilnius) where in 1910 he joined the drawing school with distinguished artist Ferdynand Ruszczyc.
In 1911, Itkind moved to Moscow, Russia, where he was accepted by famous sculptor Sergei Volnukhin to study in his workshop at the School of Sculpture and Architecture in 1912-1913.
Itkind's first publish exhibition – in Vilno in 1915 – included his wooden works “Victims of Inquisition,” “Padre,” “Bitter Laughter,” “The Smiling Jew,” “The Crazy Man,” and “Noah’s Arch.” (The newspaper “North-West Voice,” «Северо-западный голос» Jan 1, 1915) The works performed by Itkind before 1918 were devoted to the theme of grief ("Bitter laughter,” "The Crazy Man,” and "Moralist").
At the exhibition dedicated to the 15th Anniversary of Soviet Sculpture Itkind presented his famous “ Victims of fascism pogrom: the head of the composer Matz, killed by “browns”, 1927, (now in The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg) His prolific contribution to the Art Exhibition in Hermitage dedicated to 100 years of death of Pushkin in 1937 included 100 pieces of sculptures.
In the 1920-30s Itkind was considered a living genius along with Chagall and Picasso, and one of the leading Russian sculptors of 20th century along with Sergej Konenkov and Stepan Erzia.
From his oral stories, famous writers and directors – Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Yesenin, Vsevolod Meyerhold, persuaded Itkind to start writing.
http://www.pkzsk.info/isaak-itkind-skulptor-voskresshij-v-kazaxstane/ At the same time, no one knew that "a half-savage old sorcerer eating roots, living in a dugout and collecting old stumps" was a world-famous sculptor.
During his time in Alma-Ata Itkind created sculptural portraits of famous and simple Kazakh people “Akyn Dzhambul”, “Amangeldy”, “Abay”.
According to some memoirs, approximately a year prior to his death, Isaac Itkind stopped carving and returned to his religious roots, as he was spending all days sitting with kipa on his head and reading Tanakh (Jewish Bible).
During his life, Isaac Itkind was known to generously present his sculptures to acquaintances and friends, therefore, the majority of his works created before 1956 are either lost or in private collections.