Ukrainian sculptor, active in Russia. He was the son of an impoverished landowner and studied at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg from 1764 to 1773 under Louis Rolland (1711-91) and Nicolas-François Gillet. Between 1773 and 1779 Martos completed his education in Rome under Carlo Albacini (active 1770s-1800) and adopted the Neo-classical style. He returned to Russia in 1779 and began to teach in the sculpture class at the Academy of Arts, where, in 1794, he became Senior Professor and in 1814 Rector of Sculpture. As a sculptor, he specialized in funerary monuments set up in cemeteries and church interiors, and he was the pioneer of the genre in Russian sculpture. However, he produced his masterpiece in monumental sculpture, the Monument of Minin and Pozharsky, erected on the Red Square in Moscow. //