Lev Kerbel

Born Oct. 25 (Nov. 7), 1917, in the village of Semenovka, in present-day Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. Soviet sculptor. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1967); corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1962). Became a member of the CPSU in 1963.

Kerbel’ studied at the Moscow Art Institute under L. V. Shervud from 1937 to 1942. He became an instructor there in 1962, receiving a professorship in 1963. Kerbel’ creates monumental sculptures and portraits, which are marked by great civic content. His works in the Tret’iakov Gallery include The Labor Reserves (bronze, 1947), the reliefs The Victory Parade and Listening to Lenin (plaster of paris, 1948–49; State Prize of the USSR, 1950), and the portraits V. S. Petrov—Twice a Hero of the Soviet Union (marble, 1951), K. S. Mukhtarova—Hero of Socialist Labor (marble, 1954), and J. Endicott (bronze, 1957). Kerbel’ also sculptured monuments to V. I. Lenin in the Vladimir Il’ich Kolkhoz in Gorki Leninskie (granite, 1959) and in Sofia, Bulgaria (granite, 1971). He executed monuments to Karl Marx in Moscow (granite, unveiled in 1961; Lenin Prize, 1962) and in Karl-Marx-Stadt, the German Democratic Republic (bronze, 1971). He also created the monument to the victims of fascism in the city of Rudnia in Smolensk Oblast (granite, 1965). Kerbel’ has been awarded two orders and various medals.