Alina Szapocznikow's lost sculpture Bird resurfaces in New York, heads to auction in Warsaw
A sculpture by Polish artist Alina Szapocznikow, missing for more than five decades, has been located in an upstate New York collector's outhouse. Created during the 1950s in her Warsaw studio, Bird will be sold at DESA Unicum Auction House in Warsaw on 7 April with an estimated value between $230,000 and $360,000. Szapocznikow, who died in 1973, survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt concentration camps as a teenager before studying at Paris's École des Beaux-Arts. Her work was featured in the 2011 retrospective Sculpture Undone 1955-1972, which traveled from WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Key facts
- Alina Szapocznikow's sculpture Bird was rediscovered after being lost for over 50 years
- The work was found in an art collector's outhouse in upstate New York State
- Bird was created in the 1950s in Szapocznikow's Warsaw studio
- Szapocznikow survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt concentration camps as a teenager
- She studied at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris
- A 2011 retrospective of her work traveled from WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York
- Bird will be auctioned on 7 April at DESA Unicum Auction House in Warsaw
- The auction estimate is between $230,000 and $360,000
Entities
Artists
- Alina Szapocznikow
Institutions
- DESA Unicum Auction House
- WIELS Contemporary Art Centre
- Hammer Museum
- Museum of Modern Art
- École des Beaux-Arts
Locations
- Warsaw
- Poland
- New York State
- United States
- Brussels
- Belgium
- Los Angeles
- Paris
- France