Paul Landowski

Paul Maximilien Landowski (1 June 1875 – 31 March 1961) was a Polish-French monument sculptor. His best-known work is the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Landowski was born in Paris of a Polish refugee father of the January Uprising, and a French mother. A graduate of the French National Academy, he won the Prix de Rome in 1900 with his statue of David, and went on to a fifty-five-year career. He produced over thirty five monuments in the city of Paris and twelve more in the surrounding area. Among those is the Art Deco figure of St. Genevieve on the 1928 Pont de la Tournelle. He also created 'Les Fantomes', the French Memorial to the Second Battle of the Marne which stands upon the Butte de Chalmont in Northern France.

Landowski is widely known for the 1931 Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A collaboration with civil engineer Heitor da Silva Costa and architect and sculptor Gheorghe Leonida. Some sources indicate Landowski designed Christ's head and hands, but it was Leonida who created the head when asked by Landowski.