Magdalena Abakanowicz, FROM THE "CATHARSIS" CYCLE, 1985

64.0 x 48.5cm - soft varnish, paper signed in pencil under the engraving l.: 72/80

p.: M Abakanowicz 85



♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).





Magdalena Abakanowicz (born Falenty near Warsaw 20 June 1930- Warsaw 20. IV 2017) studied in Gdansk (1949-1950) and at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1950-1954). She taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań (1965-1990). Since the early 1960s, she was involved in unique textiles, creating original spatial forms, named "abakans" after her. In 1965 she won the Gold Medal at the Second International Biennale of Textiles in Sao Paulo. In the 1970s, she began creating figural series in resin-cured jute: "Alterations" (from 1974), "Backs" (1976-80), "Embryology" (1978-80), "Crowds" (from 1986). Since the 1980s, the artist has been practicing outdoor sculpture, using wood, clay, stone and casts (the "Crowds" groups, "Katharsis" in a private collection in Italy, "Negev" - 7 colossal stone circles in the Israel Museum park in Jerusalem). In 1987 she began work on "War Games," large projectile-like forms constructed from natural wood and iron. Since 1991, she has been developing the concept of "arboreal architecture," originally designed as an extension of the La Defense axis in Paris, which she promotes as a solution to the problems of large agglomerations. She has participated in the most important reviews of contemporary art, such as the Sao Paulo Biennale (1965, 1979), the Venice Biennale (1968, 1980) and others. She has won many Polish and foreign awards.