General facts

Korolév Borís Danílovich (1884/85–1963) – a great Soviet sculptor-monumentalist, teacher and an outstanding public figure. As an artist Korolyóv stood at the origins of the Soviet school of sculpture, its mainstream, but he also was one of the leading figures in the avant-garde movement. In 1920-s he played a prime role in the realization of Lenin's plan of monumental propaganda

Monumental propaganda

Lénin's Plan of "Monumental Propaganda" – is a strategy proposed by Lénin of employing visual monumental art as an important means for propagating revolutionary and communist ideas...

. In his own sculptural works Korolyóv combined Realism

Realism (visual arts)

Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...

 with elements of Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 and Cubism

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

.

Born in Moscow and educated at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. The school was formed by the 1865 merger of a private art college, established in Moscow in 1832, and the Palace School of Architecture, established in 1749 by Dmitry Ukhtomsky. By...

 under Sergei Volnukhin

Sergei Volnukhin

Sergei Mikhailovich Volnukhin was a Russian sculptor, best known for his instruction to a generation of Russian artists at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, teaching alongside Prince Paolo Troubetzkoy....

, Korolev was a committed revolutionary, deported twice for his political activity, and a leading figure of avant-garde sculpture in revolutionary Russia.

He was an active participant in the execution of Lenin's Monumental Propaganda Plan of April 1918, which encouraged the destruction of Tsarist monuments and the rapid production of Soviet-themed sculptures and bas-reliefs. Unfortunately Korolev's rapidly produced 1919 concrete statue of Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...

, done in a Cubo-Futurist

Russian Futurism

Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...

 style and set up in Moscow, proved to be deeply unpopular and was dismantled within weeks.

Despite changing tastes, Korolev continued working in Cubist

Cubist sculpture

Cubist sculpture is a style developed in parallel with cubist painting, centered in Paris, beginning around 1909 and evolving through the early 1920s.The style is most closely associated with the formal experiments of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso...

 style into the 1920s, and became professor of sculpture at the Soviet state art school, Vkhutemas

VKhUTEMAS

Vkhutemas ) was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas. The workshops were established by a decree from Vladimir Lenin with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for...

. In 2009 he was the subject of a major retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery

Tretyakov Gallery

The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...

.

Korolev is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery

Novodevichy Cemetery

Novodevichy Cemetery is the most famous cemetery in Moscow, Russia. It is next to the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. It should not be confused with the Novodevichy Cemetery in Saint Petersburg....

. His work includes:

• the granite Fighters of the Revolution in Saratov
  Saratov
  -Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...
  
  , completed in 1925, with a cubist base
• bronze and granite figure of Nikolay Bauman, Moscow, 1931
• a number of statues of Lenin, including a bronze of Lenin in Independence Square of Tashkent
  Tashkent
  Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
  
  , completed in 1936 and replaced in 1991

On-line resources

• biography with photographs
• online biography (in Russian)
• http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/dataphotos/8/88/880fc21c18f7690c9eedc8500c33d31f.jpgimage of Korolev and his bust of Leo Tolstoy
  Leo Tolstoy
  Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
  
  ]
• image of Korolev's gravesite in Novodevichy Cemetery (in Russian)

Sources

• Bol'shaya sovetskaya entsiklopediia (the Great Soviet encyclopedia) (3d ed., vol. 13). (1973). Moscow.: Izdatel'stvo "Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya".
• Grabar, I. (Ed.). (1957). Istoriya Russkogo Iskusstva (The History of Russian Art) (Vol. XI). Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences.
• Latushkin, A.V. (1986). Pam'yatnik N.E. Baumanu (Monument to N. Bauman in Moscow). Moscow: Moskovskiy rabochiy.
• Fomina, N.N., Yakhont, O.V. (1989). Korolyov, B.D. Iz literaturnogo naslediya. Perepiska. Sovremenniki o skul'ptore (Korolyóv, B.D. Excerpts from archives and published literary works. Correspondence. Contemporaries on the sculptor. Moscow: Sovetskiy khudozhnik.