Igor Mittoraj

Polish sculptor (Oederan, Germany, 1944 - Paris 2014). Born in Germany but lived in Krakow, he completed his studies in this city, initially devoting himself to painting and setting up his first personal exhibition in

the Krzysztofory Gallery (1967).

In 1968 he moved to Paris, where he completed his artistic studies at the École nationale des beaux-arts, then lived for a year in Mexico, opening up to the powerful suggestions of Mesoamerican art, and then returning to the French capital and starting his sculptural production, which was first practiced on bronze and terracotta.

After working in New York and Greece, in 1983 he settled in Pietrasanta, an elective place for marble sculpture, the material that over time would become his preferred means of expression.

Influenced by the artistic experiences of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol and inspired by classical art, Mittoraj knew how to blend modern elements, disarticulating and fragmenting their purity to compose a contaminated and disintegrating reality, populated by tormented and mutilated characters, relics of a world lost and the brutality of history.

To seal an osmotic combination between archeology and contemporary art, his bronze sculptures have been temporarily placed in exceptional archaeological areas, such as the Mercati di Traiano in Rome (2004), the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento (2011) and Pompeii ( 2016), in evocative settings that amplify the intensity.