August Volz

The original statue of Roland by Volz (damaged during World War II). A copy stands on the square outside the House of the Blackheads. The fountain in front of the Latvian National Opera. Volz designed both the fountain and the interiors of the opera house.

August Franz Leberecht Volz (; 27 February 1851 – 20 June 1926) was a German sculptor. Born in Magdeburg, Volz worked mainly in Riga, the present-day capital of Latvia. The workshop of Volz received prestigious commissions in Riga from its opening in 1876 and created several of the most well-known sculptures of the city, for example the Roland statue and sculptures decorating the House of the Blackheads. The firm of Volz was also responsible for the complete or partial decoration of a number of important public buildings in the city.

Biography August Franz Leberecht Volz was born as the eleventh child of shoemaker Johann Volz and his wife Johanne, née Morin, in Magdeburg. He received his basic education in the city and began an apprenticeship at a sculptor's workshop in Magdeburg at the age of 1865. In the spring of 1869 he moved to Berlin, where he initially worked in a sculptor's workshop and from autumn studied sculpting at the Prussian Academy of Arts under the tutelage of , Carl Domschke, Friedrich Eggers and Karl Geppert. In 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Volz tried to join the military but was refused, the first time because he was underage and the second time because there were already too many volunteers.

Throughout his studies, Volz had been working at different workshops. In October 1871, Volz ceased his studies at the academy and began to work full-time for the firm Ende & Böckmann. The firm also took on commissions abroad, and it was through Ende & Böckmann that Volz came to Riga in the autumn of 1875 to work on the sculptural decoration of a large tenement house (on the present-day address Krišjāņa Barona iela 12). Already on 2 January 1876 he established his own firm in Riga. Riga had at that time a large Baltic German population. In addition to his own work as a sculptor, Volz taught at the Art Academy of Riga after its establishment in 1906.