Anton Starkopf

Starkopf, Anton 

Born Apr. 10 (22), 1889, on the farmstead of Karneri, in present-day Harju Raion, Estonian SSR; died Dec. 30, 1966, in Tartu. Soviet sculptor. People’s Artist of the Estonian SSR (1964).

Starkopf attended the Ažbè School in Paris in 1911 and 1912 and the Russian Academy in Munich from 1912 to 1914. Between 1919 and 1940 he taught in Tartu at the Pallas College of Art, which he had helped found; from 1929 to 1940 he was the director of the college. Starkopf taught at the Art Institute of Tartu from 1944 to 1950, serving as its director from 1945 to 1948 and becoming a professor there in 1947.

Starkopfs work, which includes small-scale, decorative, and memorial sculptures, is characterized by lyrical and philosophical imagery, expressive figures of somewhat stocky proportions, and generalized modeling. Examples include Evening (1936–37, granite, Museum of Art of the Estonian SSR, Tallinn), Stone Flower (1958, granite, Museum of Art of the Estonian SSR), and the gravestone of K. Váidas (1956, granite, Raadi Cemetary, Tartu).

Starkopf was awarded two orders and a medal.

REFERENCE

Chervonnaia, S. Starkopf. Moscow, 1967.