She was born on June 20, 1930 and graduated from the High School of Fine Arts in Gdynia. In the years 1950-1954 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Initially, she dealt with painting, but quite quickly came to the conclusion that she wanted to fulfill herself in sculpture. Her monumental spatial compositions, which she began to create in the 1960s, were named after her abakans. She used fabrics, as well as stone, wood and bronze. In 1965, at the Biennale of Art in Sao Paulo, Abakanowicz won the Grand Prix for abakans.
An archival photo of Magdalena Abakanowicz when she was in art high school (second row, second from the right) photo. Bartosz Bańka / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Magdalena Abakanowicz and her groundbreaking abakans honored in the form of a doodle
As Google notes, honoring the sculptor with a doodle, the human condition has become the main theme of Abakanowicz’s works since the 1970s. The artist was inspired by the crowd as a sociological phenomenon – the idea that the crowd acts as a whole, and individuals lose their individuality in it. Based on this assumption, Abakanowicz over the years has created over a thousand figures, or rather human torsos, for which she used raw materials like sackcloth and bronze. Her ‘Agora’ collection, a group of 106 cast iron figures, is considered her most important statement about humanity and is permanently installed in Chicago’s Grant Park.
Sculptures by Magdalena Abakanowicz photo. Jakub Porzycki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
– Magdalena Abakanowicz is a paradoxical character, because on the one hand she follows her own path, and on the other she has various, sometimes very close, personal relationships with people affected in one way or another by great politics – says Paweł Kowal, who has just published a biography of the artist, about Magdalena Abakanowicz entitled “Abakanowicz. Trauma and fame” (Agora Publishing House). In an interview for Weekend.gazeta.pl, she emphasizes that she was a heterogeneous character. – She ran her home very conservatively, she lived according to the religious calendar of Christian holidays, she meticulously kept Polish traditions. The older she got, the more often she returned to her childhood in the manor in Krępa. Also her trio with Kosmowski and Starewicz, despite the fact that people from the closest environment or the art world knew about him, was discreet. Paradoxically, it can be said that the artist you thought of as a “liberated woman” was at the same time arch-conservative, which of course only increases the fascination with her – says Kowal. It refers to her marriage to Jan Kosmowski and her close relationship with the ambassador of the People’s Republic of Poland in Great Britain, Artur Starewicz.
Magdalena Abakanowicz died on April 20, 2017 in Warsaw. She was buried on April 27, 2017 at the Powązki Military Cemetery. Her works are eagerly admired all over the world and reach dizzying sums. In 2021, her huge installation “Bambini” composed of 83 figures was sold for PLN 13,617,361. In this way, the record of the most expensive work by Abakanowicz in the world and at the same time the most expensive work of art in Poland was broken (it was broken in 2022 by “Reality” by Jacek Malczewski, sold at auction for PLN 20.4 million).
What is google doodle?
A Google Doodle is a special, temporary logo change on the homepage of Google Search for holidays, events, achievements and people.
Magdalena Abakanowicz – google doodle Google PL
For the first time in the Polish version of the search engine, doodle appeared on the occasion of Fat Thursday in 2007. Since then, both in our country and in the world, we have been able to see the graphics of, among others, on the occasion of the 130th birthday of the most important Polish art deco artist Zofia Stryjeńska or the 124th birthday of the sculptor Katarzyna Kobro.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
