Lev Kerbel

Lev Efimovich Kerbel (Russian: Лев Ефимович Кербель; November 7 [O.S. October 25] 1917 - 14 August 2003) was a renowned sculptor of Soviet realist works. Kerbel's creations included statues of Marx, Lenin, Yuri Gagarin, which were sent by Soviet Government as gifts to socialist and the Third World countries across the world. In 1976 the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union presented the Government of Sri Lanka the monument of Solomon Bandaranaike, the late Prime minister of the country, carved by Lev Kerbel.

In 1990s following the collapse of the socialist block many of his works of art were destroyed. However his enormous Karl Marx monument in Chemnitz, formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt, has been preserved as a cultural monument.

Kerbel was born to a Russian Jewish family in the village of Semyonovka in Chernigov Governorate, Russian Republic (currently Semenivka, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine), on the day that Winter Palace in Petrograd was stormed by the Bolsheviks. Lev's family moved to the Russian Smolensk region, where he began sculpting as a child. He continued to sculpt and in 1934 he won an award from the Komsomol (Young Communist League) for a plaque of Lenin.

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