Igor Mitoraj, 1944–2014

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Testa Addormentata (photo by Dave Miles).

The first I saw of the work of Polish artist Igor Mitoraj was the serene bronze face, Light of the Moon, sitting outside the British Museum in the late 1990s. I’ve enjoyed seeing pictures of his other sculptures ever since so it was dismaying to read of his death earlier this month.

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Untitled (photo by Carlo Columba).

Mitoraj’s statuary often resembled the colossal fragments of a lost antiquity but there were contemporary touches: the bound faces are a recurrent feature you won’t find in the Classical world, and some of his statues are inset with miniature versions of themselves or similar figures. The Medusa head below shows the attention to detail: a small escutcheon on one of his winged figures that wears a tiny face on its brow.

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Light of the Moon (photo by Katie Mollon).

One benefit of his work being shown outdoors is the quantity of photographs. The selection here is from a Creative Commons search at Flickr. The site has many more examples.

• Obituaries: Guardian | Telegraph

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