San Francisco Frontiers - Zurab Tsereteli, whose monumental works won over Russian elites, dies aged 91

He died at his home in Peredelkino, a village southwest of Moscow, "surrounded by his works", his assistant Sergei Shagulashvili told the RIA news agency.

Born and trained in Tbilisi, Tsereteli rose to prominence designing resort complexes in then-Soviet Georgia during the 1960s.

He became chief artist of the USSR's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later head of Russia's influential Academy of Arts, serving in the role from 1997 until his death.

Popular with Russia's elite, Tsereteli's friendship with Moscow's mayor Yury Luzhkov in the 1990s gave him what critics called a "monopoly" on public art.

He populated the Russian capital with his distinct brand of monumental architecture, earning the wrath of many Russian intellectuals in the process.

His giant statue of Peter the Great on a ship on the Moscow River got a tongue-lashing in the press, while a 500-tonne monument to Christopher Columbus built in the early 1990s was rejected by several US cities as a monstrosity.

- Reverence for Putin -

Tsereteli is more fondly known for presiding over the reconstruction of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, an Orthodox church meticulously rebuilt in the 1990s after it was demolished by Stalin.

Tsereteli also enjoyed brief success in the West during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, unveiling works that embodied the fall of communism: "Break the Wall of Distrust" in London in 1989 and "Good Defeats Evil" in New York in 1990 -- made partly from the remnants of Soviet and American missiles.

Encouraged by this success, he attempted to donate a monument dedicated to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to the city of New York, a giant 30-metre (100-foot) sculpture featuring a teardrop, but the authorities politely declined his offer.

The work finally found a home in 2005 in Bayonne, a city of 60,000 in New Jersey, in view of downtown Manhattan across the water.

Tsereteli revered President Vladimir Putin, unveiling a five-metre bronze statue of the Russian leader posing in judo gear in 2004.

But the piece was so badly received by the Kremlin that a Russian media report quoted an anonymous official as saying it should "not be exhibited anywhere except in the courtyard of the sculptor's own home".

"He of all people should know that President Putin has an extremely negative attitude towards such things," the official told the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid.

H.King--SFF