Barbara Zbrożyna (1923, Lublin – 1995, Warsaw), "Letters," 1974

Biography
She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Prof. Xawery Dunikowski from 1945 to 1947, and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studio of Prof. Franciszek Strynkiewicz from 1947 to 1952. From 1951 to 1954, she participated in the restoration of historic sculptures in Warsaw. She was a co-founder of the avant-garde Group 55. She created figurative sculptures, numerous portraits, spatial compositions, and monuments. Her style evolved from realism (the famous sculpture of a market vendor in Warsaw’s Mariensztat district from 1949), through synthetic simplifications and expressive-metaphorical deformation, to abstraction. The overarching principle of Zbrożyna’s creative work was viewing reality through the lens of human existence. This stemmed not only from the sculptor’s rich artistic and pedagogical experiences but also from her tolerance toward human frailties. Sculpture did not entirely encompass the scope of Zbrożyna’s creative explorations. Drawing became an equally important means of artistic expression. From time to time, she would set aside sculpture to devote herself fully to the freely distorted, entirely organic forms she sketched on paper. She wove into her drawn fantasies a series of forms left somewhat underexplored, intended to express human drama and grief over the inevitable. In 2008, Warsaw’s Zachęta presented a solo exhibition of the artist’s work.