Alexei Leonov (1934-2019) was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human to perform a spacewalk, on 18 March 1965 during the Voskhod 2 mission. Born in Siberia into a large, modest family, he trained as a fighter pilot before joining the first Soviet cosmonaut corps in 1960, alongside Gagarin and Titov. After his historic flight, in 1975 he commanded the Soviet side of the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the first space rendezvous between the two blocs. An accomplished painter, he drew from his flights a body of artwork devoted to the cosmos. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, he remains one of the towering figures of cosmonautics.