Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish pronunciation: [maɡdaˈlɛna abakaˈnɔvit͡ʂ]; 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. 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. She was born to a noble landowning family in Falenty, near Warsaw, before the outbreak of World War II. Her formative years were marred by 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 and 1954, navigating a conservative educational environment marked by the imposition of Soviet-dictated restrictive and propagandistic doctrine of Socialist Realism. The Polish October and subsequent political and cultural thaw in 1956 marked a significant turning point in Abakanowicz's career. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Abakanowicz's work began to take on more structure and geometric form, influenced in part by Constructivism. Her one-person exhibit at the Kordegarda Gallery in Warsaw in 1960 signaled her emergence in the Polish textile and fiber design movement. She received first international recognition following her participation in the first Biennale Internationale de le Tapisserie in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1962. Abakanowicz's most celebrated works emerged in the 1960s with her creation of three-dimensional fiber works called Abakans. During the 1970s and 1980s, she transitioned to creating humanoid sculptures. These works reflected the anonymity and confusion of the individual amidst the human mass, a theme influenced by her life under a Communist regime. Some of her prominent international public artworks include Agora in Chicago and Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Milwaukee.
Wikidata
Q158080
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
Polish sculptor and best known for her groups of headless figures made from resin and fiber (and later metal) often installed in public places. She began as a painter, but produced large scale woven sculpture from dyed sisal in the 1960s. Her public installations can be found in Grant Park, Chicago; at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC; and Warsaw’s Romuald Traugutt Park. The largest collection of her art is in in the collection of the National Museum in Wrocław in Poland. Polish sculptor and best known for her groups of headless figures made from resin and fiber (and later metal) often installed in public places. She began as a painter, but produced large scale woven sculpture from dyed sisal in the 1960s. Her public installations can be found in Grant Park, Chicago; at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC; and Warsaw’s Romuald Traugutt Park. The largest collection of her art is in in the collection of the National Museum in Wrocaw in Poland.
Nationalities
Polish, American, Central European, Eastern European
Gender
Female
Roles
Artist, Designer, Teacher, Weaver, Painter, Performance Artist, Sculptor, Textile Artist
Names
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Magdalena Abakanowicz Kosmowski
Ulan
500084577
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

6 works online

Exhibitions

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