Tumours Personified

Alina Szapocznikow

  • type of object: sculpture
  • date: 1971
  • material/technique: polyester, glass, wood, papers, gauze
  • dimensions: various dimensions
  • inventory No.: RZ-75

Tumours Personified is a series of head casts, the artist’s deformed selfportraits.
The work is a testimony of Szapocznikow’s struggle with cancer
and an attempt to come to terms with it, the result of her observation
of the gradual disintegration of her own body. Szapocznikow created
her first facial-cast self-portrait in 1965, then going on to use casts of
various parts of her body and experimenting with new materials, such
as polyester. With time, autobiographical themes came to dominate in
her practice. In the late 1960s, she created the series Bellies, Fetishes,
and Tumours — with photographs embedded in polyester mass — which,
as the disease progressed, found a continuation in the series Great
Tumours
, Tumours Stratified, Souvenirs, and finally Tumours Personified.

Other works by artist in the Zachęta collection

  • Zdjęcie pracy Headless Torso
    Headless TorsoAlina Szapocznikow1968
  • Zdjęcie pracy Cohesive
    CohesiveAlina Szapocznikow1968

Other works from this category

  • Zdjęcie pracy Untitled
    UntitledJerzy Jarnuszkiewicz1971
  • Zdjęcie pracy
    Grzegorz Klaman1986
  • Zdjęcie pracy Innocent I
    Innocent IAdolf Ryszka1965