Igor Mitoraj (1944-2014)4

1. Igor Mitoraj 4

2. Igor Mitoraj was born on March 26 1944 in Oederan, Germany, the son of a Polish mother and a French father. In 1963 he enrolled at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied painting and was for three years tutored by Tadeusz Kantor, the celebrated Polish painter and theatre director. Mitoraj had his first solo exhibition at the Krzysztofory Gallery in Krakow in 1967, the year before he moved to Paris to study at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. “I started with painting,” he said, “but I felt a constant need for the third dimension.” While travelling, and painting, in Mexico during the early 1970s he became enthralled by Latin American art. “I saw those huge, epic statues,” he recalled in 2013. “It was a sudden inspiration.” Returning to Paris in 1974, he exhibited at Gallery La Hune, for the first time including sculptural works. The success of the show led him to pursue the medium. In 1979 he began to work with marble following a visit to Carrara in Italy. Four years later he established a studio at Pietrasanta in Tuscany, near the quarries of Carrara which are famed for the purity of their white marble. “I remember when I arrived here by train,” he said, “the scents, the fast-changing landscapes, the colours. It was love at first sight.” He accepted an invitation to the 42nd Venice Art Biennale in 1986, and during the 1980s and 1990s exhibited widely across Europe and America. In 2001 the Olympic Museum at Lausanne staged the exhibition Igor Mitoraj: Nouvelle Mythologie. “What I am looking for in ancient culture is to understand how and why this type of aesthetic arose,” he said at the opening, “one that is completely mystical and at the same time religious, sensual yet human, too.”

7. Tindaro, 1997

12. Eros Bendato Eros Bendato Scrippolato Vancouver Biennale

13. Eros Bendato Krakow

15. Torso di Ikaria

17. Ikaro Grezzo

18. Heros de Lumiere, Carrara marble(1986) at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park Polvere d'Oriente

19. The Lost Myths traveling Exhibition - Madrid - Spain

20. Nascita di Venere, 1991 traveling Exhibition - Palma

21. Nascita di Venere, 1991 traveling Exhibition - Granada ©Saturnino Martinez

22. Nascita di Venere, 1991 Private collection Philadelphia

23. Iniziazione 1987

24. Dormiente 2002

25. Feminine Ikaros

26. Ikaros

31. Church dedicated to St. Mark Milan

32. Piazza del Carmine Church dedicated to St. Mark Milan

33. Nudo Coraza grande 1980

35. White Benares Blue Benares

36. Cacciatori feriti

37. Igor Mitoraj (au Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, 2004)

39. Eclisse

40. Tybris bendato

41. The "Angels“ exhibition,  Pisa

43. Igor Mitoraj has created significant commissioned works, including the gates for the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome, bronze doors for the Jesuit church in Warsaw, Poland and a group of sculptures for the Vatican Museums

44. Pietrasanta’s honorary citizen since 2001, one of the leading exponents of contemporary art, Mitoraj donated a high-relief bronze (180 x 300 cm) that develops the theme of the Annunciation, for the central lunette of the church of St. Augustine

45. Annunciazione, 2013 Chiesa di Sant’Agostino Pietrasanta

46. Doorof the Matka Boska Łaskawa Church, Warszawa, Poland

47. Doorof the Matka Boska Łaskawa Church, Warszawa, Poland

48. Doorof the Matka Boska Łaskawa Church, Warszawa, Poland

49. Doorof the Matka Boska Łaskawa Church, Warszawa, Poland

50. Basilica S. Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri Rome