Maria Anto (1937 - 2007), He knew that on the distant beaches of golden..., 1975

oil, canvas, 90 x 100 cm, signed p.d.: 'otnA airaM', signed, dated and described on the stretcher: 'MARIA ANTO 1975 "HE KNEW THAT ON THE DISTANT GOLDEN BEACHES...". and on canvas: 'Maria Anto 26.VIII | 1975 | HIS ARE THE STORIES | ZAKOPANE. IT WAS EASIER FOR HIM | TO GET THE FALL OF FATE.' | 657, on the back a sticker from the II Triennale of Painting and Graphics - Lodz 1976'.



Studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw; received her diploma
in 1962. As a girl of several years, she avoided death during an escape from a transport
to Auschwitz in 1944. In 1966, the thirty-year-old Maria Anto, at the threshold of her
artistic career, had a major solo exhibition at the Zachęta Gallery, where she showed nearly
60 oil works. Another significant event in her oeuvre was her participation in the Biennale
in Sao Paulo in 1963. Among other things, her paintings seem to be a response to the trauma of war,
which she faced in her adult life. She was one of the few female painters who achieved a
great artistic success, in addition to practicing realistic painting. Anto's work
was placed in the tradition of surrealism, metaphorical painting and naive art. As a
woman painter she functioned in the center of the artistic life of the People's Republic of Poland and at the same time on its margins.
margins. Loved and respected by artists, Maria Anto was considered at the same time
erudite, eccentric, workaholic, talented artist, phenomenally beautiful woman, and finally - the epitome of art itself. "Maria Anto does not do art. She is art," poet Jan Wolek wrote about the painter. She had about 60 individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad, and participated in about 200 group exhibitions - nationwide and international (including the VII Biennale in Sao Paulo). The artist's works are in private collections and museum collections in Poland and abroad.