The work of the sculptor Andrei Korobtsov reflects the patriotic position of the artist, his love for the past and the present Russia. The majority of Korobtsov's works is devoted to heroes who became examples of physical and spiritual strength. Thefigures of his sculpture, such as Ryazan bogatyr Yevpaty Kolovrat or soldier Eugene Rodionov - a collective image of thewarrior (Russian “vityaz”), express the original Russian character. The heroes of his works share noble pathos. Resolute, strong-willed, they are portrayed in the moments of fateful decisions, at the points where utter fortitude is demonstrated.
Korobtsov managed to continue the characteristic line drawn with his easel sculpture through the monumental works, regardless of their commercial nature. In the Kaluga monument to Ivan III, created in collaboration with film director Andrei Konchalovsky, the sculptor paid tribute to the unduly unpopular hero of Russian history. "Russia of Vladimir, Oleg and Yaroslav died under the blows of Tatars. Russia of the present was formed by Ivan III ", historian Nikolai Karamzin wrote about the Grand Prince. Before the monument by A. Korobtsov was created, there existed no official monument to the uniter of Russian lands and liberator from the Horde dependence. Therefore, the sculptor faced a particularly difficult and responsible task - to create an image that would be fixed in the minds of compatriots to the name of Ivan III. With the Kaluga monument, the sovereign appeared as a mighty pillar of Russian statehood. The question of portrait resemblance is a task for historians, but what is more important for the monument, is the unconditional correspondence of the artistic image to the officially title of Ivan III – «the Great».
With a smaller scale, but no less convincingly A. Korobtsov explored the heroic theme in a monument to the Greek Legion of the Emperor Nicholas I in Sevastopol and in a monument to a front dog, located on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, which reminds of a huge contribution of dogs to the struggle against invaders during the Great Patriotic War.
The theme of an imperceptible, quiet, but significant life-long feat was raised by the sculptor in monuments to the pioneers of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly in Gubkin, Belgorod region and to metallurgists in Tula. The artist filled the images of ordinary workers with a sense of inner dignity, having put them up to the level of real heroes of our time.
A special page in the work of A. Korobtsov is an extensive ballet series, inspired by the appearance of a ballerina Evgenia Obraztsova in the life of the sculptor. Eugenia, who became his wife, served as a prototype and a model for most of those works and made the sculptor fall in love with the world of ballet, unknown to him before. This theme enriched his creative work with new artistic solutions. In "Emeralds", which refer to a ballet production by George Balanchine "Jewels", the artist for the first time applied an incrustation with precious stones, having combined the art of sculpture with a jewelry technique.
Behind each work by A. Korobtsov there is strong realistic school background, an approach taught in his alma mater - the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Glazunov, where the sculptor received professional education. Within the short time after graduation, the artist not only matured as a monumentalist, having established a number of large monuments not only in Russia but also in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, but also managed to present his easel works at various exhibitions in Moscow, London and Vienna. The works published in the catalog can only be regarded as a beginning of a long creative path of the sculptor, albeit a beginning that is bright and fruitful.