Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930 - 2017), Head, from the series 'Anonymous Portraits', 2005

Own technique (resin-hardened jute fabric), steel, height: 68 cm, signed and dated on the base: 'MA [initial tied] 2005' and dedication: 'TO CINDY AND STEVEN MITCHELL'.

ORIGIN:
- private collection, Poland
- purchase at Hindman Auction House, Chicago
- Cindy and Steven Mitchell Collection, Chicago

One of the most important artists of the 20th century, and her works have broken records for popularity. She began her artistic education at the High School of Fine Arts in Gdynia, and in the 1950s studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, and then at the State Institute of Fine Arts in Sopot. With her imagination and courage, however, she went far beyond the traditional framework and rules imposed at art academies. She developed her own innovative style and techniques of expression, based on materials never seen before in sculpture. Her worldwide career began in 1962 at the International Biennale of Textiles in Lausanne, where she first had the opportunity to present her canvases, later called "abakans," to an international audience. At the center of Abakanovich's creative interests was the human body and, more broadly, the human condition and place in the world, the anonymity and loss of the individual in the crowd. In her famous series from the 1970s: "Alterations," "Heads," "Backs" or "Sitting Figures," she depicted incomplete, dismembered, hollowed-out human figures - the "remnants" of man. Reflections on the human being, both socially and biologically, have been a major theme throughout her work. Although she has reached for various materials over the years - bronze, metal or wood - her trademark has remained the bagged canvas, to which she has given a completely new, spatial dimension. Abakanovich's works, especially her plein-air realizations, can be found in museums and galleries around the world, including in the USA, Israel, France and Japan.