He graduated from the Moscow School of Applied Arts (1915), a student of S.M. Volnukhin. Since 1904 it joined the roar. movement. He lived in Moscow, worked in a workshop on the street. Myasnitskaya, 21. Participated in the work of Moscow. INHUK. Since 1918 he taught at the hood. universities. Member of OMX, OPC, AHRR, ASNOVA. The sculptural portraits "Lenin" (1926), "L. Tolstoy" (1928), "Zhelyabov" (1933), monuments to M. Bakunin in Moscow (1919), "Fighters of the revolution" in Saratov (1925), N. Bauman in Moscow (1931), Lenin in Tashkent (1936) and other works.
Born in Moscow on December 28, 1884 (January 9, 1885) in the family of a sales clerk. In 1903 he entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University. He joined the revolutionary movement (since 1904), was twice arrested and deported abroad (1906). After a short stay in Switzerland, he returned to Moscow illegally and lived on someone else's passport. In 1907–1910 he studied at art courses at the Bess gymnasium (where N.P. Ulyanov was one of his tutors), and later at V.N.Meshkov and I.I. Mashkov, studio schools. Having legalized (in 1910), he attended the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (the sculptural class of S. M. Volnukhin), graduating from it in 1915. In 1917 he became one of the organizers of the Moscow Professional Union of Sculptors and Artists, then took part in the implementation of the “monumental propaganda” plan "And as an administrator. He headed the Commission of sculptural and architectural (later pictorial, sculptural and architectural) synthesis (Sinskulparkh or Zhivskulparkh) at the College of Arts of the People's Commissariat of Education (1919-1920). He participated in the Moscow Institute of Artistic Culture (Inuk).
His early works do not stand out against the background of the average level of plastic impressionism and modernity. Having experienced the fruitful influence of cubism, Korolev managed to combine the principles of modernist and avant-garde sculptural forms in dynamic and at the same time monumental images. It was in this style (and under the program of “monumental propaganda”) that he created his “unknown masterpiece” - a monument to M. A. Bakunin for Moscow (1919, reinforced concrete). At the opening, the monument caused shock: the revolutionary anarchist was depicted holding his own head in his hands. Soon, after a newspaper campaign inspired from above (under the slogan “Take away the scarecrow!”), The monument was dismantled.
The avant-garde experiments in the channel of Zhivskulparch remained only in the form of sketches. Over the years, the master was drawn into the mainstream of socialist-realist neoclassicism, generally standard and impersonal, although marked by high mastery of layout and modeling. He performed monuments to the Fighters of the Revolution in Saratov (granite, 1924-1925), N.E.Bauman in Moscow (bronze, granite, 1931), numerous monuments of V.I. Lenin - in Pereslavl-Zalessky (1929), Tula (1933), Tashkent (1936; in 1991 dismantled and replaced by the Monument of Independence) and other cities, the design of the monument to A.I. Zhelyabov for Leningrad (1933-1934; private collection, Moscow). He created a number of ceremonial portraits, including Lenin (marble, 1926, the Central Museum of Lenin, Gorki), which became the first work of this kind officially approved for reproduction (V.I. Lenin Institute). The gravestones of his work are purely official (T.I. Nette at the Vagankovsky cemetery, 1927; V.D. Bonch-Bruevich at the Novodevichy cemetery, 1955; both are marble). For many years (since 1918) he worked as a teacher - in the Higher art and technical workshops (Vhutemas) and the Moscow Regional Art College in memory of 1905.
