Helen Zelezny-Scholz

Helene Zelezny-Scholz
File:Helene Scholz-Zelezny.jpg Helen Zelezny
Born	Helena Scholzová
Nationality	Czech
Known for	Sculpture, Drawing, Ceramics
Notable work	see below

Helen Zelezny, also known in Europe as Helene Zelezny-Scholz or Helene Scholzová-Železná (August 16, 1882 - February 18, 1974), was a Czech born sculptor and architectural sculptor. She is also known as an Italian sculptor as she lived and created in Rome, where she was critically acclaimed, for a number of years. She is also known variously as Helena Zelezny-Scholz, or Helen Scholz.

Her mother was the well-known writer and poetess Maria Stona; Marie Scholz; born Stonawski(1861 - 1944) [1], a genial and highly gifted personality, who drew into her circles many noticeable persons, world-famous artists, politicians and writers such as Georg Brandes, Clemanceau, Berta von Suttner, Flinders Petrie, Stefan Sweig, being among her guests in her home the Castle of Strzebowitz. After Maria Stona died in 1944 the castle was occupied by the Russian Army and totally destroyed in the mid 50'es.

At the outbreak of the war in 1914 she went to Vienna, where she assumed a position which might be designated as that of Court Sculptor, many portraits of the Imperial family, including the Empress Zita, emerged from her hands.

Returning in 1919 to Italy, having in the interval married Colonel Zelezny, she worked at first in Florence, then in Rome (where she had her studio in Via Margutta No. 54 until her death), usually spending the summer months in her native country.

Her sculptures has been exhibited in Paris, Vienna, Rome, Prague, Philadelphia, Venice and many other places. Her work has place in public galleries and private collections all over Europe and USA.

Unfortunately several of her sculptures were destroyed during the Second World War, among these being the great central altar, representing the life of St. Hedvige, in the Church dedicated to that saint in Troppau, Sudetenland.

Helene Zelezny-Scholz has made more than 300 portraits in marble, bronze and terracotta (busts, reliefs and statuettes), in which she not only renders a striking likeliness, but reflects the soul of the person, the individual secret beauty of each.

She was a fine teacher for more than 1.000 pupils in her lifetime, developing the individuality in each of them. When she returned to Florence after the First World War she started with her first pupils, mostly children. Until the Second World War here pupils were only young girls.

Later when she went to USA (1946-1949) she taught in five different mixed classes at Art Centres in and near Philadelphia, as for instance at the Museum of Art and at Swathmore Collage. From 1949 until her death she had regular classes in her old studio in Rome. In that period she managed to teach more than 700 pupils of different sex, different age and from 12 nations. Work from some of the student can be seen in her own book “My dear Pupils” from 1973.

File:StrzebowitzCastle.jpg

Strzebowitz Castle‎

Life

Zelezny was born and raised in Třebovice, Moravia. Zelezny studied drawing in Vienna and Dresden, and sculpture in Berlin under Fritz Heinemann (1864-1932), and four years in Brussels under sculptor Charles van der Stappen. Van der Stappen was a portrait and decorative sculpture, as Zelezny is known for.

After one year of study in Paris, she settled down in Florence, at that time the Mecca of young artists. Subsequently she made a long stay in Tunis, finding opportunity there to visit the Musselmen harems and become acquainted with their inmates and customs, an experience which found expression in many characteristic groups and statuettes.

In 1913 Zelezny in Tunis among other things sculpted the outside of a house. Georg Brandes joined her here for 14 days. She moved to Vienna at the beginning of the First World War. She was the most significant representative of the sculpture of north Moravia and Silesia beside 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, Benito Mussolini, and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1932). She was also commissioned to sculpt monuments such as one to victims of the First World War. She exhibited in a international exhibitions in Berlin and Vienna (1907), in Rome in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery (1932), and in Paris.

Works

• The Thoughtful, bronze, 1906, the castle Raduň[2]
• The Melancholia, 1906, bronze, 1906, the castle Raduň [3]
• Allegory of the Drama and Music, 1907, town theatre in Moravská Ostrava (smashed);
• Alois Scholzes tomb with the Allegory of the Sorrow, 1908-9, Gratz;
• Small statuette Georg Brandes 1913. They travelled together to Tunis where the statuette was made during their fortnight stay there.
• Allegory justice, 1914, judicial building, [[Fryštát];
• tomb sculpture on the grave dr. Ostrčil, 1924, Praha-Olšany;
• cenotaph, 1930, Těšín (smash);
• The Common and Feast Days, bronze, 1933, gallery in Ostrava
• Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), bronze, 1933, Museum Silesie in Opava
• The Slovak Family, bronze, 1933, the castle Raduň
• cycle of 10 reliefs of the life the saintliness, 1936, church St. Hedvika, Opava;
• Pope Paul VI, 1967

Zelezny has work maintained in the permanent collection of the castle Hradec nad Moravicí, several pieces in the Museum Silesie in Opava, some works in Gallery of the Fine Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ostrava, and in in the [National Gallery in Prague]] in addition to private collections.

Bibliography

Aus der Jugend einer Bildhauerin, Tagenbuchblätter aus den Jahren 1908-1917. Roma 1972. Jessen, J.: Deutsche Bildhauerinnen. In: Der Bazar (Berlin) 20. 1. 1908; Deutsche Heimat (Sudetendeutsche Monatshefte) 4, 1928, 16, 43 a 48; Das Bild (Karlsruhe) 12, 1942, 124, 131-136, 141; Strinati, R.: Elena Z. - Sch., Scultrice. Roma 1957; Spidlik, T.: Sculptured Prayer. Roma 1968; Mann, Anthony: Zelezny Portrait Sculpture 1917-1970. Roma 1970; H. Z.¬Sch. Sculpturess. My dear Pupils. Roma 1973; H. Z. - Sch. Nachlese. Roma 1974;

Thesis (in Czech): Jůza, Jiří.: H. Z.-Sch., zapomenutá sochařka 1. poloviny 20. století. Diplomová prá¬ce FF UP Olomouc. Olomouc 1996.

Sculptures

• The Thoughtful, bronze, 1906
  The Thoughtful, bronze, 1906
• Melancholia, bronze, 1906
  Melancholia, bronze, 1906
• Small statue Georg Brandes 1913
  Small statue Georg Brandes 1913
• Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), bronze, 1933‎
  Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), bronze, 1933‎
• Cycle of 10 reliefs of the lives of the saints, 1936
  Cycle of 10 reliefs of the lives of the saints, 1936
• Pope Paul VI, 1967
  Pope Paul VI, 1967

References

• Biografický slovník Slezska a severní Moravy. Sešit 11. Ostrava, Ostravská univerzita, 1998, s. 123-124.
• 1 of 10 reliefs of the life the saintess in church St. Hedvika, Opava 1936, foto J. Novák.

in: Gebauer, Josef. Chrám sv. Hedviky v Opavě. In: Vlastivědné listy, 1994, Vol. 20, Nr. 1, p. 21-23.

• Helene Scholz-Zelezny. In: SMETANOVÁ, J. TGM. Praha : Primus, 1996, p. 191.

• All in: Jůza, Jiří.: Helena Železná-Scholzová, zapomenutá sochařka 1. poloviny 20. století. In: Ostrava. Vol. 19. Šenov : Tilia, 1999, p. 147-175.