Zenta Logina was born in Riga on 23 August 1908 in a family of Karlis Knope, a civil servant and designer by profession. The whole family moved to Moscow during the World War I and there her father managed to find a job and thus ensured the survival of his family. In 1920 the family returned to Latvia.
In 1925 she became a student of the Latvian Academy of Art. Her professor at the painting workshop was Romans Suta. However she left the Academy in 1928 to continue her development until 1931 in private studios of Romans Suta and Sergey Vinogradov, a member of Academy. During the 30-s she takes a job of daytime assistant at Suta's studio and goes to Berlin in 1936 to study textile design.
Zenta Knope - Logina makes her first public appearance in 1932 at the art show of the society "The Green Crow" and since then she participates in yearly shows arranged by the Culture Fund and the Society of Latvian Artists as well as in many other exhibitions. The reviews written by the art critics were mostly favourable to the young artist's work of this period - figurative compositions, still life, landscapes and portraits.
In 1933 the artist marries Mr. Bonifacijs Logins. The Soviet authorities arrest her husband in 1941 and for many years to come the artist is in a state of painful obscurity about her husband's fate. No information is given by the soviet prosecutor's office and the same situation continues during the German invasion. In 1948, still unable to find out what happened to her husband, the artist has to file a divorce in law-court. Only then she was told that her husband had been dead since 1942. However Zenta refused to believe in the official statement issued by the Court and continued to live in expectation of her husband's comeback... The canvases created in the 30-s were signed "Z. Knope-Logina" but the works of later periods were signed simply "Z. Logina" - probably as a manifestation of undefeated mind.

The artist has no studio of her own after the war and has to live and work in a communal apartment. Nevertheless it was in these years of desperation and unfulfilled hope that the artist created so many highly emotional and full of warmth paintings of flowers, genre paintings, landscapes and urban scenes, marines.
In 1945 Zenta Logina joins the painter's section of the Soviet Latvian Artist's Society. She participates in art shows arranged in Riga and in Moscow as well as is several times commissioned by the government. In 1950 the artist is expelled from the Artist's Society, the official pretext being put in the following wording: "Due to insufficient creative activity that has caused a decline in artistic level; at present it does not correspond to the demands applied to the members of the Artist's Society of the USSR". This meant a loss of right of presenting her work in public. This was also the starting point of her life in isolation, which lasted until her last day in this world. Nevertheless she never stopped her work.
In 1953 she was renewed in the Artist's Society but only in the section of applied art with a limited right to exhibit only textile artwork.
In 50-s or to make her living she is drawing sketches of warps for textile industry. The archive entries of that period testify that she has been selling her books, furniture and other personal effects.
Not only was Zenta Logina deprived of the right to present her work in public, to be evaluated by colleagues and to be admired by viewers but also the KGB starts persecution. From the note written to her sister in 12 May 1958: "I was summoned to the KGB for interrogation. Immediately after you left, a man came with orders. Said it would last only one hour. I had to be there at 230 PM and now it is already 3 PM. I think I should better go. Don't worry. I have to go to 61 Lenin Street, room 605."
There are several stages in the artistic development of Zenta Logina. The early painting - portraits, landscapes, still-lives, figurative compositions are undoubtedly talented and fit into the general context of stylistic properties of Latvian painting at that time. In her work one can sense some link to the tradition of the past but at the same time there is a quest for new artistic possibilities.
In the 40-s and 50-s the artist works heavily in the genre of still life. It is easier for her to solve purely artistic tasks and play with colour schemes in her many freely painted flower compositions. For her it is the time for deep internal reflection and accumulation of creative potential - a kind of preparation for a new period of creativity when all the might and unique attractiveness of the artist's talent would be revealed.
In the sixties the artistic manner of Zenta Logina is changing: the artist has such a rich imagination and internal world that the transition from the depiction of real world to abstract expression happens easy and in a natural way. The essence and style of these canvases are totally different from her earlier work: many of them are devoted to Universe and are a kind of testimony to the internal growth of the artist herself revealing deep philosophic reflection. The incessant aptness to overcome the customary limitations, to experiment with form and material in order to express her own ideas more vividly and precisely, is gradually turning into a cornerstone of the creative personality of Zenta Logina. More and more often Logina is dissatisfied with painting in one dimension: she now makes reliefs and sculptural creations in a unique technical manner. Observing the work of Zenta Logina completed during the last decade of her life it is hard to imagine that all this manifold exposure was created by one fragile woman - these works are so saturated with ideas that there is a feeling that the artist sometimes had problems with the implementation of all visions of her imagination.
Since 1967 in many art shows in our country and abroad tapestry made from the sketches of Zenta Logina by her sister Elize Atare (1915-1993) is regularly exhibited - thus providing the only public information about life and work of Zenta Logina. Only the closest friends and relatives know that the artist keeps up intensive work in her communal apartment.

Elize Atare has been living together with her sister since the 40-s and relieved her from all daily problems of practical life in order to let Zenta engage in creative work freely. To be able to implement the artistic ideas of her sister, she mastered the art of weaving being 48 years old and later developed a unique technology of gobelin making.
Zenta Logina met her fate in 21 December 1983. After three years in March-April 1987 her first personal show is arranged in St. Peter's church in Riga. Only her sister selected the works of artist's latest period (Her sister selected only the works of artist's latest period). About 40 thousand viewers visited the show during the short twenty six days in spring 1987.
The next personal shows of Zenta Logina took place in Tukums Art museum (1995) and in the gallery of the Artist's Society (1996). A show of textiles made by Zenta Logina and Elize Atare is opened in the Museum of Decorative and Applied Art in Riga in December 1998 and a simultaneous personal show of Zenta Logina is arranged in the gallery "Asuna".
Most of her art made in classical genres have never been exhibited up to this day.
The works of Zenta Logina are deposited in the collections of the Museum of Decorative and Applied Art in Riga, Latvian Artist's Society, Art Museum "Arsenals", self-government of Riga, St. Peter's church in Riga, State Company "Litta" in Riga, Art Show Directorate in Moscow, Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, in Dodge Collection (Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA) as well as in private collections.