Frederic Chopin Monument was designed in 1907 by Wacław Szymanowski for its planned erection on the centenary of Chopin’s birth in 1810 but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I.
The statue was finally cast and erected in 1926.
Szymanowski’s statue was the world’s tallest Chopin monument until the unveiling, on March 3, 2007, of a slightly taller, modernistic bronze in Shanghai, China.
After the end of the war, the monument was rebuilt. Architect Oskar Sosnowski designed the pedestal and basin, which are made of red Wąchock sandstone.
The statue was blown up on May 31, 1940.
The members of the jury who selected the winning project included such figures as Antoine Bourdelle, Józef Pius Dziekoński and Leopold Méyet.
A 1:1-scale replica of Szymanowski’s statue stands in Hamamatsu, Japan.
The stylized willow over Chopin’s seated figure echoes a pianist’s hand and fingers, and the Polish eagle’s head on the right end.
Tsar Nicholas I, consented to have it built to honour what would’ve been Chopin’s 100th birthday.
In 2007, a bronze bust of Frédéric Chopin, the patron of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, by sculptor Gennady Jerszow was placed in the Philharmonic in Gdańsk.
