Helen Zelezny-Scholz

Helen Zelezny-Scholz

Helen Zelezny, also known in Europe as Helene Zelezny-Scholz, Helen Scholz or Helene Scholzová-Železná (16 August 1882 – 18 February 1974), was a Czech born sculptor and architectural sculptor. She is widely considered one of the most influential figures in the sculpture of north Moravia and Silesia, besides Josef Obeth, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Her sculptures largely featured sculpted portraits, including members of the Habsburg family, Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Lady Sybil Grahamová,"Il Duce" Benito Mussolini, and 1st President of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1932) with whom she gained a close relationship.

She is also known as an Italian sculptor as she lived and created for a number of years in Rome, where she was critically acclaimed. Her mother was the well-known writer and poetess Maria Stona.