Odhise Paskali

Odhise Paskali was born on December 22, 1903, in Kozani to an Albanian family from Përmet. He studied art history and philosophy at the University of Turin in Italy under Lionello Venturi, graduating in 1927 while mastering classical and modernist bronze sculpture.

Returning to Albania, Paskali founded the Society of Friends of Art and organized the country's first fine art exhibitions. He sculpted over six hundred monumental works, defining Albania's public urban aesthetic: I urituri (The Starving, 1932), the National Resistance monuments, and his crowning triumph, the colossal 11-meter bronze equestrian statue of Skanderbeg erected in the center of Skanderbeg Square in Tirana in 1968. He was awarded the title 'People's Sculptor'.