Kerbel (left) together with fellow Soviet sculptor Vladimir Tsigal, 1945Lev Kerbel's monumental bust of Karl Marx in Chemnitz, GermanyThe Lenin Monument in Parque Lenin, Havana, Cuba (1984, sculptor: Lev Kerbel; architect: A. Quintana)
Lev Yefimovich Kerbel (Russian: Лев Ефимович Кербель; November 7 [O.S. October 25] 1917 – 14 August 2003) was a Soviet and Russian sculptor of socialist realist works. Kerbel's creations included statues of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Yuri Gagarin, which were sent by Soviet Government as gifts to socialist and the Third World countries across the world.[1]
After the war, Kerbel's career took off with a wide range of commissions. In 1958 he sculpted a statue in Shanghai that depicted a huge Soviet and an equally large Chinese worker hand in hand. When Soviet-Chinese relations foundered a few years later, the statue was torn down by a mob.
While some people dismiss Kerbel's works as a form of flat Communist propaganda, Kerbel himself said that he was always more interested in art than politics. Many people now view his few remaining statues with nostalgia, particularly in Chemnitz, where his bust of Karl Marx is referred to as 'the head'. Among the monuments on the graves of the Soviet soldiers carefully preserved in Germany are Kerbel sculptures in Berlin and on Seelow Heights.[1]
In the 1990s following the collapse of the socialist bloc many of his works of art were destroyed. However, his enormous Karl Marx Monument has been preserved as a cultural monument. One of Kerbel's last works was the memorial to the crew of the Kursk submarine, inaugurated in Moscow on August 12, 2002.[3]
Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class (5 November 1997) – for services to the state and personal contribution to the development of the national fine arts
Order of Friendship of Peoples (6 May 1993) – for the great achievements in art, to strengthen international cultural relations and fruitful pedagogical activity
