János Pásztor was a renowned Hungarian academic

Academic art

Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...

 sculptor in the first decades of the 20th century.

Early life

Pásztor learned sculptural arts in the School of Arts and Crafts (Iparművészeti Iskola, today Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design

Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design

The Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design , former Hungarian University of Arts and Design, is located in Budapest, Hungary. The university is committed to training traditional artist-craftsmen, as well as architects, designers and visual communication designers...

) in Budapest. He was a pupil of Lajos Mátrai.

His first works were the side figures of the Pál Vásárhelyi Monument in Szeged

Szeged

' is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county town of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary....

. In 1903 he got a fellowship in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. In 1905 Pásztor settled down in Hódmezővásárhely

Hódmezovásárhely

Hódmezővásárhely , Romanian: Ioneşti) is a city in south-east Hungary, on the Great Hungarian Plain, at the meeting point of the Békés-Csanádi Ridge and the clay grassland surrounding the river Tisza...

 but five years later he moved to Budapest.

He became a renowned artist with popular exhibitions in 1911, 1918, 1925 and 1930. In 1929 he won the Grand Prix of the World's Fair in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

. He was killed at the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 during the bombardment of Budapest.

Pásztor sculpted small genre statues, female nudes, portraits and funeral monuments. In the 1930s and 1940s he created several important public monuments in Budapest. His most important works-of-art are the Ferenc Kazinczy

Ferenc Kazinczy

Ferenc Kazinczy was a Hungarian author, the most indefatigable agent in the regeneration of the Magyar language and literature at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century...

 Memorial in the Castle District

Buda Castle

Buda Castle is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest, first completed in 1265. In the past, it was also called Royal Palace and Royal Castle ....

 of Buda, and the Neo-Classicist equestrian statue of Francis II Rákóczi

Francis II Rákóczi

Francis II Rákóczi Hungarian aristocrat, he was the leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs in 1703-11 as the prince of the Estates Confederated for Liberty of the Kingdom of Hungary. He was also Prince of Transylvania, an Imperial Prince, and a member of the Order of the Golden...

 erected in front of the Hungarian Parliament Building

Hungarian Parliament Building

The Hungarian Parliament Building is the seat of the National Assembly of Hungary, one of Europe's oldest legislative buildings, a notable landmark of Hungary and a popular tourist destination of Budapest. It lies in Lajos Kossuth Square, on the bank of the Danube, in Budapest...

 on Lajos Kossuth Square

Lajos Kossuth Square

Lajos Kossuth Square is situated in the Lipótváros neighbourhood of Budapest, District V, on the bank of the Danube. Its most notable landmark is the Hungarian Parliament Building...

in 1937.