Paul Maximilien Landowski (1875 – 1961) was a French monument sculptor of Polish descent. His best-known work is Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Landowski was born in Paris, France, of a Polish refugee father of the January Uprising, and a French mother Julie Vieuxtemps. He studied at the Académie Julian, before graduating from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 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, and the two major Monuments aux Morts in French North Africa, respectively known as Le Pavois in Algiers and the monument à la victoire et à la paix in Casablanca.
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.
He won a gold medal at the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Sculpture, an event held from 1912 to 1952. From 1933 through 1937 he was Director of the French Academy in Rome. He also served as an art–juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919–1954 to young French painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers and musicians.
Landowski was the father of artists: painter Nadine Landowski (1908–1943), agricultural engineer and Legion d’Honneur, fallen in the Debarquement de Provence (Jean Maximilian Landowski) (1911-1944), composer Marcel Landowski (1915–1999), and pianist and painter Françoise Landowski-Caillet (1917–2007).
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| Paul Maximilien Landowski |
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| Le voleur d'oranges, circa 1903 |
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| Le fakir aux serpents, circa 1903 |
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| Water carrier, circa 1905-10 |
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| Les fils de Caïn, circa 1906 |
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| L'hymne à l'aurore, circa 1908 |
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| Les fils de Caïn: le berger, circa 1910 |
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| Aux artistes dont le nom s'est perdu, circa 1913 |
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| Statue équestre d'Édouard VII, circa 1914 |
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| Le Pugiliste Modèle, circa 1920 |
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| Héraclès et la biche aux pieds d’Airain Modèle, circa 1921 |
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| Concert champêtre et La Becquée, circa 1925 |
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| Project basic, circa 1925 noncarried out |
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| Monument en hommage à Paul Déroulède, circa 1927 |
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| Head and hands in the workshop of Boulogne |
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| Building site in Rio |
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| Christ the Redeemer, circa 1931 |
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| Christ the Redeemer, circa 1931 |
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| Monument à la mémoire de l'amiral de Grasse, circa 1931 |
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| Montaigne, circa 1933 |
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| Les Fantômes de Landowski, French WWI Memorial, circa 1936 |
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| Les Fantômes de Landowski, French WWI Memorial, circa 1936 |
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| Les sources de la Seine, circa 1936 |
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| Place du Trocadéro, circa 1936 |
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| Le tombeau du maréchal Foch, circa 1937 |
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| La ronde des sirènes, circa 1947 |
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| Pandore, circa 1947 |
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| Porte de la faculté de médecine, 1951 |
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| Le retour éternel, circa 1954 |
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Gre Edmond, circa 1972
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| Algiers Monument |
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| Portrait de femme Buste en bronze |
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