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Provenance:
- Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne.
- Purchased from the above by the present owner in 1973, since then private collection Switzerland.

The sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz was born in 1930 into a Polish aristocratic family. She studied painting at the Academy of Arts in Gdansk from 19491 to 1954, but even then, she harboured a great fascination for sculptural works.

The Abakans, named after her surname, became her trademark. In the 1960s/70s, these works were unique in their innovation and radicalism. In her large-scale installations, she liberated textile art from its traditional purpose as wall hangings or carpets, which are two-dimensional and decorative. In the case of Abakanowicz, the works, some of which are monumental, are hung freely in the room and thus become moving objects. The viewer wanders through this newly created world dominated by huge hanging objects.

The difficult economic situation behind the Iron Curtain led Abakanowicz to use found materials such as ropes, cordage, textiles, etc. for her sculptures. In order to be able to work with them in a way that suited her ideas, she developed her own technique. On the one hand, she elevated found, everyday objects to the status of traditional sculptural materials such as bronze, plaster etc. At the same time, the use of textiles lent her sculptures mobility and a certain softness, which again creates a very special experience for the viewer when walking through the installations.

The present work Cercle Coupé from 1972 is an impressive example of Abakanowicz's textile art. She knotted an oval carpet out of orange sisal, with two bulges in the middle, which in turn conceal a slit. Different knotting techniques create a shifting surface; the bulges consist of individual, detached sisal threads. The title is a purely technical description of what is there. What the viewer sees and interprets is up to them.

Magdalena Abakanowizc was awarded the Grand Prix at the 1965 Sao Paulo Biennale for her incredible power of innovation and radicalism, which she impressively demonstrated with the Abakans.

The cultural but also social significance of this unique artist is reflected in the impressive cross-border and cross-institutional awards she received, such as the Sculpture Prize of the Sculpture Centre New York, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Resituta, the appointment as Officer of the Order of Arts and Science in Paris and the appointment as Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy. She was also an honorary doctor of the Royal Academy of Art, London, the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, the Academy of Fine Arts Lodz, the Pratt Institute New York, the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, among others. In 2010, Abakanowicz was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany.