Stursa is of the most important Czech sculptors of the Modernist movement. He studied stone carving in Moravia - an area where many artists lived and came from.Stursa later moved to Germany and then to Prague. In Prague from 1899 to1904  he studied under the founder of the modern Czech style of sculpting, Josef Vaclav Myslbek, whose most famous sculpture is the the statue of Saint Wenceslas in the center of Prague. Stursa's early works from 1900 to 1914 are much more lyrical. As early as 1906 he began to show a far more modern style as in the present "Melancholy Girl"- that greatly infuriated his teacher . The Melancholy Girl, originally carved from deep grey French limestone, is recognized as one the great masterpieces of early Czech 20th century sculpture. By 1910 his female figures became significantly more cubist --a total departure from the early Art Nouveau style. His figure of Sulamit Rahu was unusually muscular and grotesque. In 1914 he was about to leave Prague to study in Paris with Antonine Bourdelle but on on the 3rd of August he joined the 81st Infantry instead and served until 1916 on the Carpathian front and there suffered acute mental and physical illness. Although he did not sculpt during this time - he involved himself in drawing. One of those drawings became the inspiration for his timeless symbolic sculpture completed in 1921- "Wounded " a sculpture that expresses the carnage of war like no other- a young soldier impaled on barbed wire in an almost balletic pose. Wounded is the most important sculpture of the modern movement of Czech sculpture and is an enduring symbol to the Czech Nation. Jan Stursa destroyed many of his old plaster works and took his own life in 1925.