Exhibition of sculptor Andrei Korobtsov

On August 30, the personal exhibition of the sculptor Andrei Korobtsov, the author of the monument to Ivan III, so beloved by the Kaluga monument, which opened in November 2017 on Old Torg Square, will be inaugurated in the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts (103 Lenin Str. 103, second floor).

Andrey Korobtsov is a member of the Union of Artists of Moscow. Author of more than 10 monuments and monuments in Russia and abroad, including co-author of the monument to P. A. Stolypin at the Government House in Moscow, author of memorial plaques in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don, laureate and participant of many sculptures contests.

In the work of the sculptor Andrei Korobtsov, the patriotic position of the artist, his love for the past and present of his country, was reflected. The bulk of the work of A. Korobtsov is devoted to heroes who have become examples of physical and spiritual strength. His sculptural characters, such as the Ryazan hero Evpatiy Kolovrat, the soldier Yevgeny Rodionov, the collective image of the hero, express the idea of an original Russian strong character. The heroes of the works in his workshop have a noble pathos - decisive, strong-willed, they appear at the moment of making fateful decisions, the highest manifestation of fortitude.

A. Korobtsov managed to continue the characteristic line of his easel work in monumental works, despite their custom-made character. In the Kaluga monument to Ivan III, created together with the film director Andrei Konchalovsky, the sculptor paid tribute to the undeservedly unpopular hero of Russian history. “Russia of Vladimir, Oleg and Yaroslav died under the blows of the Tatars. Present-day Russia was formed by Ivan III, ”the historian Nikolai Karamzin wrote about the Grand Duke. Not a single large official monument was erected to the Tsar, the unifier of Russian lands and their liberator from Horde dependence, to the A. Korobtsov monument. Therefore, the sculptor faced a particularly difficult and crucial task - to create an image that would be fixed in the minds of compatriots for the name of Ivan III. In the Kaluga monument, the sovereign appeared as a powerful pillar of Russian statehood. The issue of portrait similarity is a task for historians, but for a monument, the unconditional conformity of the artistic image to the title “The Great” officially worn by Ivan III is more important.

A less ambitious, but no less convincing heroic theme was revealed by A. Korobtsov in a monument to the Greek Legion of Emperor Nicholas I in Sevastopol and in a monument to a front-line dog on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, which recalled the huge contribution of dogs to the fight against invaders during the Second World War. The theme of an inconspicuous, quiet, but significant feat of a lifetime was raised by the sculptor in the monuments to the pioneers of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly in the city of Gubkin, Belgorod Region, and metallurgists in Tula. The artist filled the images of simple workers with a sense of inner dignity, raising them to the level of genuine heroes of our time.

An extensive page in the work of A. Korobtsov is occupied by an extensive ballet series of works inspired by the appearance in the life of the sculptor of the ballerina Evgenia Obraztsova. Eugene, who became his wife, served as the prototype and model for most of the works of the series, falling in love with the artist until then, a completely unfamiliar world of ballet. A new theme has brought creativity and new artistic solutions. In the work “Emeralds”, addressed to the ballet production of George Balanchine’s “Jewels”, the artist first applied incrustation with precious stones, combining the art of sculpture with jewelry technique.

Behind each work of A. Korobtsov there is a strong realistic school, an approach instilled in the alma mater of the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Ilya Glazunov, where the sculptor received a professional education. In the short time that has passed since its graduation, the artist not only completely developed as a monumentalist, erecting a number of large monuments not only in Russia, but also in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, but also managed to present his easel works at exhibitions in Moscow, London and Vienna. The works published in the catalog can be considered only as the beginning of the sculptor’s creative path, but the beginning is certainly bright and fruitful.

The exhibition runs until September 30th.