Paul Landowski graduated from the French national academy. He won the Prix de Rome in 1900 for his statue of David and went on to a long lasting career producing over 45 monuments in Paris and the surrounding area. Among those is the Art Nouveau figure of St. Geneviève on the Pont de la Tournelle. He also created Les Fantomes, the French Memorial for the Second Battle of the Marne, now located at the Butte de Chalmont in Northern France. In 1928, he won the gold medal in the Art Competitions for his Statue Boxer. His best-known work is the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, finished in 1931 in association with civil engineer Heitor da Silva Costa. In 1920 he became a Knight of the Legion of Honor. Beginning in 1929, Landowski ran a master atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts and from 1933-37 he was Director of the French Academy in Roma. He then became director of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His children also became famous artists: the painter Nadine (1908-43), the composer and cultural politician Marcel (1915-99), and the pianist and painter Françoise (1917-2007).
The statue for which Landowski was awarded the gold medal in 1928 shows the French professional boxer Georges Carpentier, who acted as a model for him in 1920. A 100 cm high version of the bronze statue is in the Musée des Années Trente in Boulogne-Billancourt, which is dedicated to Landowski’s works. It is noteworthy that the medal-winning work is neither listed in the exhibition catalog nor shown in the 1928 Official Report. Perhaps Le Pugiliste entered in 1924 is the life-size model for the statue of 1928. Le boxeur tombé (also called Knock-down), was created in 1921 with the dimensions of 41 x 32 x 50 cm and was supposed to be part of a series of four sculptures dedicated to boxing: a fallen boxer, a boxer putting on the bandages (not realized), a fight (not realized) and a standing boxer. L’Aviation may be the Monument to Wilbur Wright and the Forerunners of Aviation, which Landowski created in 1917-1919 together with architect Paul Bigot. Both received the first assignment for the – with plinth – 11 m high monument in 1912. The planning, however, was interrupted by the World War I. The monument was inaugurated in 1920 on the Place des Jacobins in Le Mans. The figure that crowns the monument is also available as a more than 2 m large plaster or bronze figure. Maybe only this was submitted in Paris.
France