The Studio Was Her Entire World The Studio Was Her Entire World
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The artist in her studio in 2015; photo: Ștefan Sava, Ivan Gallery and Hauser & Wirth
Art

The Studio Was Her Entire World

The Late Fame of Geta Brătescu
Stach Szabłowski
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Stach Szabłowski writes about an artist who made a great impression on the “Przekrój” editorial staff during the 2017 Venice Biennale – an impression that got under our skin, and will remain there forever. Geta Brătescu really became an international star only in her eighties. That is, she would have become somebody like that, if stardom was in her nature. But what could be done, since Brătescu always prized her freedom?

About a decade ago, the global art world first discovered the identity of the Romanian artist, and then went crazy about her; with time, their interest only grew. Meanwhile, she herself was doing what she had been doing for almost seven decades. She simply worked – tirelessly and with enthusiasm – until September 2018, when she passed away at the age of 92.

“Ms Oliver in Her Travelling Clothes”, 1980. Geta Brătescu, photographed by her husband, Mihai; photo: Mihai Brătescu, Ivan Gallery and Hauser & Wirth

I saw Brătescu’s work for the first time in the Encyclopaedic Palace – the great exhibition

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Photo by Eustachy Kossakowski
Experiences

I Held in My Hand Something Living

The Life of Maria Papa Rostowska
Zbigniew Libera

The sculptor Maria Papa Rostkowska led a happy life. Maybe that’s why so few people remember who she was.

Dear readers! Like the lives of most of Poland’s best artists, the life of the “giantess” and at the same time “fashionable kitten” (as the heroine of our article was variously described) was rich in tragic events. Yet simultaneously, it was an exceptionally successful and happy life. Even so, or perhaps precisely because of this, her name remains almost completely unknown in Poland. What to do? We’ve already grown accustomed to the idea that Polish society doesn’t exactly shower its outstanding artists with love.

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