Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930 Falenty near Warsaw - 2017 Warsaw), Hand, 1992.

bronze, size approx. 10 × 19 cm
signed with bound monogram and date: MA 92, below edition no: "3/8"

"Magdalena Abakanowicz is an artist and didacticist. The power of intellect, talent and an extraordinary need to create, cause the author new calls of art. She is an artist who expresses herself with all the freedom and knowledge of reality in many disciplines of fine arts. She uses various techniques and technologies, depending on the chosen material, and she chooses these in the place where she comes to create. For the author, the form of the work is very important. She senses it intuitively. She penetrates the possibilities of the most appropriate creation and gives it energy and ambiguous relationships (not excluding archaic ones). Each figurative or non-figurative form has its own distinct expression, its own expression and its own life. It is firmly rooted in reality and working in the artistic message. Here it doesn't matter whether it is fabric, drawing or sculpture, each work reflects traces of encoded memory that is the result of careful observation - the mystery of observation, noticing small and large phenomena occurring in the close and distant surroundings of man, natural disasters and the shuffling of living beings, caused by various kinds of threats, chaos and anxiety." Laudation by Prof. Kazimiera Frymark-Błaszczyk delivered during the presentation of Magdalena Abakanowicz with an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz in 1998 (quoted in "Magdalena Abakanowicz" exhibition catalog, Starak Family Foundation, Spectra Art Space 2020, nlb.).