Surrealistki. Potęga wyobraźni: Maria Anto
Maria Anto was one of the most original artists working in figurative painting. She graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1962, and a year later she participated in the prestigious VII São Paulo Biennale. In 1966 she had her first solo exhibition at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art. A large retrospective exhibition of the artist's work was also shown there in 2017, focusing on work from the 1960s and 1970s. The artist's works, created in the spirit of surrealism, naive art and fairy-tale-like fantasy painting, are imbued with an atmosphere of the uncanny, understatement and mystery.
The paintings of Maria Anto did not fit in at all, both in terms of form and content, with the obligatory stylistics of the communist era. Her landscapes, portraits of women, group portraits on a landscape background, depictions of animals, including fantastic ones, and still lives carry a large symbolic and emotional load, connected with the painter's personal experiences. In 1971, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Galleria d'arte Cortina in Milan, which became the beginning of many years of cooperation and gave rise to further exhibitions. Maria Anto's extraordinary personality and the uniqueness of her works resulted in valuable contacts with important personalities of the artistic life, such as Dino Buzatti, Enrico Bay, Max Ernst or Dorothea Tanning, during her several-month stays in Italy.
Lecturer: Ewa Szachowska – art therapist, coordinator and author of educational projects and a long-term associate of Art Transfer Foundation (since 2013). She collaborates with the Museum of Modern Art on the Vistula River on the project The Mature Wonderful. She conducts workshops, guided tours, lectures and various educational activities using the medium of art, dedicated mainly to adults, especially seniors, but also to people with disabilities and children. She is passionate about history of art – both by education and by avocation. She deals with education through art and art therapy both from the conceptual and workshop point of view. She also conducts workshops and works as a guide in the Botanical Garden at the University of Warsaw.
