Biography
1930	Born in Falenty, Poland
1950/54	Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland.
1954/60	Paints series of large gouaches on paper and canvas.
1960s	Creates monumental three-dimensional forms called "Abakans", made out of materials woven by herself in her own technique.
1970s	Changes scale and material. Creates huge cycles of figurative and non-figurative sculptures made out of burlap and resins, called "Alterations".
1980s	Creates series of monumental sculptures using bronze, stone, wood and iron. Installs permanent outdoor "spaces to experience" in Italy, Israel, S.Korea, Germany and America.
1990/91	Upon the invitation of the Paris authorities concerning the enlargement of the Great Axis of Paris, she designs Arboreal Architecture, her concept of a modern, ecological city, in which buildings organic in shape, are vertical gardens. Creates "Bronze Crowd", group of 36 figures.
1992/93	Continues to work on "War Games" - huge tree trunks armed with steel. Begins the cycle of "Hand-like Trees" - vertical bronze forms.
1994/97	Designs and choreographs dances deriving from her sculptures, performed by "Asbestos", the Japanese Butoh dance group. Creates "Hurma", 150 children figures and "Backward Standing", 60 figures of adults. Creates cycles of monumental metaphoric bronze heads, animals and birds follows.
1998/99	Creates huge oval forms out of concrete -"The Space of Unknown Growth"- in Europe Parkas, Lithuania. Creates first groups of "walking figures" out of burlap, then also out of bronze.
2000	Creates a bronze "Crowd of 95 Figures" standing and walking.
2001	Creates two big groups of walking figures. Installs compositions of six birds out of aluminum
2002	Installs "Unrecognised" - 112 iron cast figures larger than human size, as a permanent display in the Citadel Park in Poznan, Poland.
2003	Inauguration of "Space of Stone", 22 granite blocks, installed permanently in a specially prepared space at Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey. At the same time the "Open Air Aquarium", 30 stainless steel welded fish on the riverfront in Philadelphia, is inaugurated.
2003/04	The group of "20 Big Figures" (260 cm = 8'8'') is being permanently installed in front of the Princeton University Art Museum, USA.
2006	November: Installation of "Agora" - a large permanent project for Chicago Grant Park consisting of 106 iron cast figures, each about 9 feet tall. The largest figurative sculpture of our time.
She has been Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan, Poland (1965 - 1990) and Visiting Professor at the U.C.L.A. (1984). Magdalena Abakanowicz lives and works in Warsaw.