Biography

Known for her inventive approaches to form and material, Maria Bartuszová (b. 1936, Prague, Czechoslovakia; d. 1996, Košice, Slovakia) created a prolific body of ethereal and evocative sculptures over the course of three decades. The Slovak artist developed a distinctive sculptural language that was guided by her own pioneering methods of casting plaster.

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The artist’s preliminary interest in casting was established during her studies at the Academy of Applied Arts, Prague, from where she graduated in 1961. Whilst at the academy she had specialised in ceramics and porcelain, mainly making hollow fragile forms, such as porcelain tea sets and vases.

Bartuszová’s career was generated within the context of Košice, where she had moved in 1963, working in intentional isolation. Due to the limitations of socialist Czechoslovakia in the Cold War period, she was also closed off from direct contact with European and global events. However, the artist was alert to artistic sources and the books in her library made reference to Constantin Brancusi, Louise Bourgeois, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi, amongst others.

During the 1960s, Bartuszová conceived the technique of gravistimulated modelling which guided the conceptual framework of her early sculptures. The process involved pouring plaster in a filled shape, typically balloons or tyres, and then pressing or binding the form by hand when the plaster began to harden. Underlining the importance of temporality to the artist’s work, with her experiments taking place across time, Bartuszová’s techniques also expressed the physical sensation of touch.

By the middle of the 1960s, the artist was focused on abstraction. She was led by her interest to find a rapid method of modelling pure, perfect forms. Her haptic sculptures conveyed ephemeral transient shapes found in nature. Sources included natural processes, such as the germination of a seed and the ripening of fruit, as well as raindrops and the wind. Towards the end of her career, Bartuszová began to place her works in the trees in her garden, in order to photograph them, which culminated in the artist displaying sculptures in outdoor settings as part of exhibitions of her work.

In the 1970s, Bartuszová’s methods evolved to concentrate on the effects of weight, resulting in the creation of soft plaster sculptures. These works were made by pressing hard objects onto the plaster form and binding them with rubber bands. The artist later considered the physical qualities of air and water when she began experimenting with pneumatic casting in the 1980s.

Throughout her life, the artist’s methods relied on intuition, play and meditation. Her materials and approaches are symbolic of the prevailing themes in her practice, relating to existence, reflection, growth and decay. ‘My breath is a part of the pulsating universe’, she commented. The techniques she mastered and returned to throughout her career contribute to the cyclical nature of her work, with forms and ideas overlapping at various points.

All research has been conducted by Gabriela Garlatyová, Curator of The Archive of Maria Bartuszová in Košice, and is included in the artist’s catalogue raisonné which coincided with the major survey at Tate Modern, London, in September 2022.

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Works

Untitled, 1962–64

Bronze
29 x 10.5 x 10.5 cm (11 3/8 x 4 1/8 x 4 1/8 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Untitled, 1968-70

Plaster
13.9 x 15.9 x 17.9 cm (5 1/2 x 6 1/4 x 7 1/8 in)
Courtesy: The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice, and Alison Jacques, London © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

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Folded Figure, 1965

Plaster
17 x 19.5 x 12 cm (6 3/4 x 7 5/8 x 4 3/4 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Folded Figure, 1968

Bronze
15 x 40 x 38 cm (5 7/8 x 15 3/4 x 15 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Untitled, 1982

Stone and plaster
16 x 19.5 x 19.3 cm (6 1/4 x 7 5/8 x 7 5/8 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Three-Part Sculpture IV, Germination, 1975-80

Aluminium
67.2 x 20.5 x 20.3 cm (26 1/2 x 8 1/8 x 8 in)
Courtesy: The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

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Untitled, 1968-69

Plaster
17 x 10 x 11 cm (6 3/4 x 4 x 4 3/8 in)
Courtesy: The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice, and Alison Jacques, London © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

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Untitled, 1972-74

Plaster
10 x 27 x 17 cm (10 5/8 x 6 3/4 x 4 in)
Courtesy: The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice, and Alison Jacques, London © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Untitled, 1986

Plaster and string
15 x 22 x 15.5 cm (5 7/8 x 8 5/8 x 6 1/8 in)
Courtesy: The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice, and Alison Jacques, London © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

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Untitled, 1984

Plaster and stone
11 x 41 x 19 cm (4 3/8 x 16 1/8 x 7 1/2 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Untitled, 1985

Plaster and string
48 x 56 x 20.5 cm (18 7/8 x 22 1/8 x 8 1/8 in)
Courtesy: The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice, and Alison Jacques, London © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Perforated Torso, 1986

Plaster
55 x 56 x 50 cm (21 5/8 x 22 1/8 x 19 3/4 in)
© The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Untitled, 1985

Plaster
30.5 x 14.5 x 11 cm (12 1/8 x 5 3/4 x 4 3/8 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Rebound Torso, 1984

Bronze
42 x 33 x 32 cm (16 1/2 x 13 x 12 5/8 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Untitled, 1985–87

Plaster and string
27 x 36 x 24.5 cm (10 5/8 x 14 1/8 x 9 5/8 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

Four-Part Sculpture, 1986–87

Plaster
58 x 24 x 24.5 cm (22 7/8 x 9 1/2 x 9 5/8 in)
Courtesy: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

  • Untitled, 1962–64
  • Untitled, 1968-70
  • Folded Figure, 1965
  • Folded Figure, 1968
  • Untitled, 1982
  • Three-Part Sculpture IV, Germination, 1975-80
  • Untitled, 1968-69
  • Untitled, 1972-74
  • Untitled, 1986
  • Untitled, 1984
  • Untitled, 1985
  • Perforated Torso, 1986
  • Untitled, 1985
  • Rebound Torso, 1984
  • Untitled, 1985–87
  • Four-Part Sculpture, 1986–87

Press

Beyond Form review: the dogged gunk rockers who besieged the art world – and the disco

Adrian Searle, The Guardian

February 2024

Maria Bartuszová

Anne Wagner, London Review of Books

June 2023

10 Under-Recognized Artists Who Got Their Due in 2022

Alex Greenberger, ARTnews

December 2022

Plaster master – Maria Bartuszova at Tate Modern, reviewed

Millie Walton, Apollo

December 2022

Plaster master: the art of Maria Bartuszová

Florence Hallett, The New European

November 2022

London’s leading female gallerists who are changing the art world forever

Amah-Rose Abrams & Eloise Hendy, The Glossary

October 2022

Maria Bartuszová review – a world of misshapen planets and alien art forms

Jonathan Jones, The Guardian

September 2022

Maria Bartuszová at Tate Modern review: Portrays the quiet magic of a remarkable sculptor

Ben Luke, Evening Standard

September 2022

Do you understand Mária Bartuszová’s art better than children do?

Cal Revely-Calder, The Telegraph

September 2022

Maria Bartuszova review — this Tate retrospective is inspiring

Laura Freeman, The Times

September 2022

A Futurist of Form

Anke Kempkes, Tate Etc.

September 2022

Tate Modern opens Maria Bartuszová’s first major UK exhibition

Mark Westall, FAD Magazine

September 2022

Maria Bartuszová: an artist of the fragile who was anything but

Helena Kardová, The Guardian

September 2022

Art Basel Viewing Rooms: Editorial Selections

Ocula Magazine

June 2020

Review: A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, Muzeum Susch

Kasia Redzisz and Francesco Tenaglia, Mousse

March 2019

Lives of the Artists: Maria Bartuszová

Gabriela Garlatyová, Tate Etc.

May 2017

Review: Maria Bartuszová, MoMA Warsaw

Noemi Smolik, Artforum

February 2015

Exhibitions

Of the Surface of Things

24 February30 April 2022

Maria Bartuszová

6 April21 May 2016

Books

Maria Bartuszová

Juliet Bingham and Gabriela Garlatyova

2022

Maria Bartuszová

The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

2022

Maria Bartuszová

The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice

2021

Maria Bartuszová: Provisional Forms

Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw

2015

Sochárky

Slovenská Národná Galéria, Bratislava, Slovakia

2015

Maria Bartuszová: Sochárskie Práce I.

Krajská organizácia ZSVU v Košiciach

1988

News

Maria Bartuszová, Lygia Clark, Lenore Tawney, Hannah Wilke & Sheila Hicks

in ‘Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970’, Turner Contemporary, Margate

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘Handle with Care’, Ludwig Museum, Budapest

Maria Bartuszová

Museum der Moderne, Salzburg

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘Fragment of an Infinite Discourse’, Lenbachhaus, Munich

Maria Bartuszová Retrospective

Tate Modern, London

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘fragilités’, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague

Maria Bartuszová, Birgit Jürgenssen, Dorothea Tanning

in La Biennale di Venezia

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘Au Rendez-vous des Amis’, Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘Untitled, 2020: Three Perspectives on the Art of the Present’, Punta della Dogana, Palazzo Grassi, Venice

Maria Bartuszová, Birgit Jürgenssen & Hannah Wilke

in ‘A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women’, Muzeum Susch, Switzerland

Maria Bartuszová, Birgit Jürgenssen, Michelle Stuart, Dorothea Tanning & Hannah Wilke

in ‘Virginia Woolf’, Tate St Ives, Cornwall

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘Sochárky’, East Slovak Gallery, Kosice

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘Disobedient Bodies’, Hepworth Wakefield

Maria Bartuszová: Provisional Forms

MoMA Warsaw

Maria Bartuszová

in ‘The Promises of the Past’, Centre Pompidou, Paris