Igor Mitoraj (1944 - 2014), Helios

Patinated bronze, stone, 39 x 36.3 x 10.3 cm, signed p.d.: 'MITORAJ' and described at the bottom: 'A 359/1000 H.C.'.

Born in 1944 in Oederan, Germany. He graduated from an art high school in Bielsko-Biala. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, including under Tadeusz Kantor. In 1968, he left Poland. For the next two years he continued his studies at the École nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In the mid-1970s he devoted himself to sculpture, creating intimate heads and torsos in distinctive wraps or bandages. He showed them in his first solo exhibition in 1976 in Paris, which received acclaim from the public and art dealers. The artist divided the following years between Paris and the area around Carrara, Italy. He used classical techniques, creating both intimate and monumental sculpture. In his art he referred to the traditions of antiquity, treating its legacy as relics of a golden age of culture and timeless models. The work of the artist, who died in 2014, was presented in more than 120 exhibitions around the world, and his - now famous - sculptures stand in representative locations around the world.