Zsigmond Kisfaludi Stróbl

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Zsigmond Kisfaludi Stróbl(1884 Alsórajk - 1975 Budapest) was a Hungarian sculptor and artist. His sculptural style integrated elements of realism and academism style mainly engaged in creating portrait busts.

[edit] Early life

Zsigmond studied under Mátrai and Antal Lóránfi at the School of Applied Arts for four years. Meanwhile he worked in the workshop of Alajos Stróbl: he produced two nude sketches in 1904 and 1905. He went to Vienna on a scholarship. On his return to Hungary, Béla Radnai was his master at the School of Industrial Design. Finale, a composition with three nude figures from 1911, won him the Radics Prize in 1912 allowing him to go to Italy, France and Belgium. His art was influenced by the esthetics of Adolf Hildebrand, a notable German sculptor and theoretician whose academic style left its trace on Kisfaludi Strobl's sculpture.

He participated as a soldier in World War I, during which he created portraits. "Archer" from the late 20s reflected Bourdelle's influence.

Kisfaludi Stobl's art reached its peak between the two world wars, in the late 1920s and 1930s. Technically his work was highly proficient, and his statues and china figures, whether small or larger than life-size, had a dynamic elegance of their own. That period of his life was marked by countless small bronzes, plaquettes and monumental statues such as the War Memorial in Nagykanizsa, and the Prince St. Emeric in Budapest in 1930) after making study trips to England and the USA. His portraits Béla Iványi Grünwald 1924, Dénes Györgyi 1923, G.B. Shaw 1932, János Pásztor 1934, and Crown Princess Elizabeth of England 1937), some 50 or so completed in Great Britain brought him fame not only in Hungary and Great Britain but all over the world.

The bust of General Hamilton was erected in Aberdeen, Scotland, and The Birth of Venus in Santa Barbara, California. "Liberty" on Gellért Hill was created in a record time in 1947.

The Kossuth Memorial near the Hungarian Parliament

Kisfaludi Stobl produced the main figure of the Kossuth Memorial which was erected in front of the Hungarian Parliament in 1952, and in 1953 the new figures of Rákóczi and Kossuth for the Millennium Memorial.

He was over 80 when he produced a monumental version of "Warriors of the Border", a statuette, which was erected in Eger in 1968. His portraits of Zoltán Kodály (1966), Árpád Szakasits" and Pál Pátzay (1967) were also widely praised.

Zsigond's works are in the collection of the Hungarian National Gallery and the Göcsej Museum, as well as the British Museum, The Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum.

He died in Budapest in 1975.