Marian Konieczny

Marian Adam Konieczny (13 January 1930 – 25 July 2017) was a Polish sculptor and politician, Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.

Life
A 1954 graduate of the Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Krakowie (Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts) in Kraków, Konieczny was a student of Xawery Dunikowski. He was a professor and rector of the Academy from 1972 to 1981. Konieczny sculpted many notable monuments, such as the Warsaw Nike, Martyrs Memorial in Algiers, General Tadeusz Kosciuszko in Philadelphia and Pope John Paul II in Leżajsk. In 2000, President Aleksander Kwasniewski awarded him the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta. His monument of Vladimir Lenin in Nowa Huta was the biggest Lenin's monument in Poland, removed in 1989. Lenin's heel was damaged in 1979 as the result of a weak explosion. In 2009, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.

Konieczny died in Jasionów, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, on 25 July 2017 at the age of 87.