Seated figures magdalena abakanowicz biography

The unmistakable work of the Polish sculptress Magdalena Abakanowicz has contributed significantly to the re-evaluation of the figurative tradition in contemporary sculpture. Abakanowicz’s works are reflections on the horrors of the war years she experienced as a child in Warsaw: they give a form to the unspeakable. They offer the observer a figure as a catalyst – recognizable or divineable, incomplete or fragmented, isolated or grouped together. Animal-like creatures, hybrids between man and beast, or headless striding, standing or sitting human figures are arranged in small up to very large groups. These sculptures, oscillating between fragility and weight, vulnerability and assertiveness, hold the observer in a fascination it is almost impossible to escape from. The winner of numerous awards since 1965, Magdalena Abakanowicz has been presenting her work internationally and is now on display in the world’s major collections and museums. Several of her expressive and const

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Magdalena Abakanowicz

Polish sculptor (1930–2017)

Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish pronunciation:[maɡdaˈlɛnaabakaˈnɔvit͡ʂ]; 20 June 1930 – 20 April 2017) was a Polish sculptor and fiber artist. Known for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium and for outdoor installations, Abakanowicz has been considered among the most influential Polish artists of the postwar era.^[1][2] She worked as a professor of studio art at the University of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland, from 1965 to 1990, and as a visiting professor at University of California, Los Angeles in 1984.^[3]

She was born to a noble landowning family in Falenty, nära Warsaw, before the outbreak of World War II. Her formative years were marred bygd the Nazi occupation of Poland, during which her family became part of the Polish resistance. After the war, under the imposed communist rule, Abakanowicz attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Sopot and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw between 1950

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Magdalena Abakanowicz: A Timeline

1. Confronting History 1930–60

The Second World War shaped Abakanowicz’s early life. Once the war ended, she joined in rebuilding a cultural scene of inquiry and innovation in Warsaw.

I am a historic being like all of us ... I carry within myself an ample portion of humanity prior to history. On this ahistoric part of my being - of every being - is impressed, like an effigy, a memory of the most ancient sensations and feelings. In materializing them, I speak through them about my reality. It is a union of the most ancient and the fresh experience.

Magdalena Abakanowicz

1930
Born Marta Magdalena Abakanowicz in Falenty near Warsaw, 20 June 1930. As the second daughter her birth is a disappointment in establishing a lineage that would unite her father’s Russian and Tatar heritage and her mother’s Polish nobility.

1939
Nazi Germany invades Poland on 1 September 1939 and Soviet troops follow on 17 September, marking the beg