This extremely veristic work is part of sculpture series, in which the artist
increasingly combined autobiographical motifs with an interest in new
materials. On the one hand, the bust is an image of a young woman,
disturbing by virtue of being headless, and on the other, it evokes peace and
beauty — the perfect cast is set against a dark, polyurethane background
that softly wraps around it like a pillow. In this work, as in many others from
this period, Szapocznikow created self-portraits in the form of fragments
of her own body. She did not yet show the torment of her illness, but rather
captured an image of its beauty.