Champion (Wrestler Georg Lurich)

This is one of the most important sculptures in Amandus Adamson’s legacy and in Estonian art history. Champion (occasionally also called Athlete) depicts the wrestler Georg Lurich, who posed for Adamson in the artist’s studio in Paldiski.

After the sculpture was completed, Lurich ordered two bronze casts of it from the bronze workshop of the Frenchman Adolphe Morand: one was meant for Lurich himself and the other was a gift to the Nurenberg wrestlers’ club that bore his name. Adamson paid for the casts but Lurich later refused to reimburse. The case was taken to court, but the end result is not known. 

One of the casts is in the Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum, the other was sent to the 1904 World Exhibition in Saint Louis, USA. It was never returned to Estonia, because the clerk who had organised transportation simulated a serious illness and vanished in America. Therefore, a plaster version of the sculpture was displayed at the first Exhibition of Estonian Art in 1906. In 1924, another bronze cast was made in Tartu, which is currently preserved in the Art Museum of Estonia.

This particular sculpture sent to the World Exhibition in the USA is said to have won First Prize there (other sources say it only received a special mention). It is possible that the above-mentioned clerk was the one who sold the sculpture at the time.

In 2017, the statue appeared on sale at James D. Julia’s antiques auction in the USA and it arrived in Estonia the same year.

Currently there are no other known versions of Champion. The different casts of the sculpture have been displayed at numerous exhibitions in Russia, the USA, Latvia and Estonia.