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Korolyov, Boris (Danilovich)
(b Moscow, 9 Jan 1885; d Abramtsevo, 18 June 1963). Russian sculptor. He joined the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1910 as a student of the sculptor Sergey Volnukhin (1859–1921), having already studied in private Moscow studios. His pre-revolutionary work is dominated by impressionistic portraits and nudes, most of which are small-scale studies, such as Dancer (bronze, 1916; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.). Following a trip around Western Europe in 1913 Korolyov also began to experiment with Cubist sculpture; this style characterizes his early post-revolutionary work (1918–24). During this period he was a member of the Moscow collegium of IZO Narkompros (1918–22), as well as other official bodies, and head of Sinskul’ptarkh, subsequently Zhivskul’ptarkh, founded in May 1919. Sinskul’ptarkh was the first post-revolutionary association of avant-garde architects, united primarily by their rejection of classicism and their call for a synthetic approach to art and design—principles to which Korolyov adhered for much of his early career. Having reduced his sculpture to abstract conglomerations of faceted geometric bodies, as in his monument to Karl Marx (plaster of Paris, 1919; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), he used similar forms in experimental designs for architecture, agitprop pillars and platforms, and table lamps. He taught at the State Free Art Studios (Svomas) and at Vkhutemas (1920–25). His work for the realization of Lenin’s Plan of Monumental Propaganda included supervising the removal of Tsarist statues and the creation of new idols, for example the monument to the Fighters of the Revolution (granite, 1924–5; Saratov). In the early 1920s he turned away from the radical left to a central position, as evidenced by his subsequent membership of the Societies of Russian Sculptors (1925–32), of Moscow Painters (1924–5) and of Moscow Artists (1927–32). Thus from the mid-1920s onwards he produced primarily figurative sculpture that became, in line with the demands of the political dictatorship, progressively dominated by realist portraits, as in the monument to Nikolay Bauman (bronze and granite, 1931; Moscow), Lev Tolstoy (plaster of Paris, 1930; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.) and Andrey Zhelyabov (bronze, 1928; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.).
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