Alajos Stróbl

1856 – 1926

Hungarian sculptor, a leading personality of Hungarian sculpture at the turn of the century. His art can be best characterized with sensitive realistic modelling. He was a pupil of Kaspar Zumbusch (1830-1915) between 1876-80. He was a young sculptor when his statue Perseus (1882) attracted a lot of attention. He created two statues for the façade and two sitting figures ( Ferenc Erkel and Franz Liszt ) for the entrance of the Opera. From that time onwards, he became the most popular sculptor of memorials. He sculpted the figure of the poet János Arany (in the garden of the Hungarian National Museum) in 1893, the Fountain of King Matthias (in Buda Castle) in 1904, and the equestrian statue of St. Stephen (in the Fischer Bastion in Budapest) in 1906. The Semmelweis Memorial was erected in 1906 (now in front of Rókus Hospital). The statue of the writer Mór Jókai (1921), the composition Reading Girls (1921), the Sándor Károlyi Memorial and the busts of József Eötvös and János Arany stand in public places of Budapest. Together with Kálmán Gerster, Stróbl produced statues for the Kossuth Mausoleum (1907) and the Elizabeth Memorial. The statue of János Arany (1910) can be seen in Nagykörös and the Szécheny Memorial (1914) in Szeged. His war memorial, originally intended to be an apotheosis of Károly Lotz, is in Sansted, England. In addition to his works in the style of memorial typical of the 19th century, he also created a great number of impressionist portraits (Self Portrait at Young Age, 1878, Young Woman, 1916-18, and Szinyei Merse, 1918-19, etc.). Our Mother, one his major works, was awarded the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris. For many decades, he was a teacher of the Art School, his influence in this capacity was enormous.

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