Ivan Martos

For the Spanish footballer, see Iván Martos Campillo.

Ivan Martos
220px Ivan Martos (рortrait by Alexander Varnek)
Native name	Иван Петрович Мартос
Born	1754 Ichnia, Pryluky Regiment, Cossack Hetmanate
Died	Saint Petersburg
Education	Member Academy of Arts (1782) Professor by rank (1783)
Alma mater	Imperial Academy of Arts (1773)
Known for	Sculpture

Ivan Petrovich Martos (Russian: Иван Петрович Мартос; Ukrainian: Іван Петрович Мартос; 1754 — 5 April 1835) was Ukrainian and Russian sculptor and art teacher who helped awaken Russian interest in Neoclassical sculpture.

Biography

Martos was born between Chernihiv and Poltava in city of Ichnia and enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Arts between 1764 and 1773. He was then sent to further his education with Pompeo Batoni and Anton Raphael Mengs in Rome. Upon his return to Russia in 1779, Martos started to propagate the ideas of Neoclassicism. He executed a large number of marble tombs, which are often regarded as the finest in the history of Russian art.

Enjoying the patronage of the Russian royalty, Martos held a professorship at the Imperial Academy of Arts since 1779 and became its dean in 1814. His main claim to fame is the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square, conceived in 1804 but not inaugurated until 1818. Owing to the many years he spent on this one work, Martos did not produce much other sculpture in the period. He died at St Petersburg.

His later outdoor sculptures - those of Duke de Richelieu above the Potemkin Stairs in Odessa, Prince Potemkin in Kherson, Alexander I in Taganrog, and Mikhail Lomonosov in Kholmogory - became the symbols of those towns, although modern art critics often compare them unfavorably with his earlier, less bombastic works.

During the Soviet dictatorship Martos's memorial statues - including those of Nikita Panin and his family - were snatched from the cemeteries to be exhibited in the newly set up museums, while his colossal bronze statue of Catherine II, unveiled at the top of the Moscow Nobility Column Hall in 1812, was destroyed altogether.

Selected works

• Архангельск.Памятник Ломоносову.jpg

  Monument to Mikhail Lomonosov, in Archangelsk

• Ukraine, Odessa, Duke statue.jpg

  Monument to the Duc de Richelieu, in Odessa

• Moscow 05-2017 img07 Monument to Minin and Pozharsky.jpg

  Monument to Kuzma Minin and Dmitri Pozharsky, in Moscow

• Мартос - Надгробие М. П. Собакиной.jpg

  Headstone for
  M. P. Sobakin

• Volkonskaya tombstone by Martos (GTG, 1782) by shakko 04.jpg

  Headstone for
  S. S. Volkonsk

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons