Cyprian Godebski (sculptor)

Cyprian Godebski (sculptor)

Cyprian Godebski (30 October 1835 – 25 November 1909) was a Polish sculptor and from 1870 a professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He was the grandson of Polish poet and novelist Cyprian Godebski, creator of the "Legions poetry" genre, who had served in Napoleon's Polish Legions.

Cyprian Godebski is remembered for having won the contest for the Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Kraków, but also for having lost that commission to a newcomer, Teodor Rygier, whose more popular design was ultimately adopted by the city in 1889. Godebski, however, created an equally revered Mickiewicz monument in Warsaw, erected 10 years later on Krakowskie Przedmieście, for which he was awarded 50,000 rubles by the Committee to Erect the Adam Mickiewicz Monument (Społeczny Komitet Budowy Pomnika).

The Warsaw statue was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, in 1942, and was recreated in 1955 using the head and a fragment of the torso recovered in Hamburg.