Under the open sky

The first time she leaves

The wood sculpture symposium of Moravany nad Váhom, near Piešťany, with Tomáš Štraus as its theorist. Antonina is the only foreign participant. Out of it comes «Ręce»: five oak blocks two metres tall, from which hands reach out.

A reporter from Pravda watches her work and writes that the piece «awakens into speech a mighty archaic form, from which reach out the hands of man — of man who calls and who prevails». The following year výtvarný život ranks it among the finest works of the whole Moravany collection. The sculpture is still there, in the castle park.

Wood is living matter

At Kostanjevica na Krki, in the Forma Viva park, she carves «Sfera»: three metres of oak. It is here that she says how she looks at materials — stone is dead matter, wood belongs to the living world and welcomes the chisel; a tree dies when it is felled, but the sculptor, giving it a new form, breathes new life into it.

Of the spherical mass with its core she says that it takes up the form of the eye, «the greatest creation of nature, able to look and also to see».

Three times in three years

The Reinhardtsdorf symposium gives her sandstone; the work that comes of it, «Zbliżenie», reaches the Treptower Park in Berlin and carries a German title there, «Werdendes». On the left flank is the incised signature: AWJ, 1976.

The next year she is at Hoyerswerda: eight sculptors from seven countries, two months of work, the theme a song by Brecht and Eisler. The stele with the text is a collective work and bears on its back the signatures of all eight — there is a signature of Antonina cut into stone, in Germany, and it is not on a sculpture of hers.

In 1978 the Rostock zoological garden calls her to carve before the public. She begins on 21 June on two sandstone blocks of two and a half tonnes each; she finishes in under eight weeks, before the zoo’s visitors, and on 15 August the work is unveiled by the director.

And then, much further east

The only one that does not stand in the open, and the farthest of all. A relief of one and a half by seven and a half metres in the lobby of the Polish Embassy in Moscow, won at an invitation-only competition. She is already working on it in August 1977, while at Hoyerswerda, and mounts it on site the following year.

The subject is an eagle. Her own account keeps the political tensions of the worksite, over an eagle without a crown.

And meanwhile, at home

While she travels, Poland fills up. Płock in 1970, the Warsaw escarpment in 1975, Zamość in 1978, the little square of the Mielec library in 1979, the Praga district in 1980, Nieporęt in 1982 and again in 1990, the Ostrołęka church in 1992.

And in 1982 the Bródno cemetery, where she signs the tombstone of a seventeen-year-old boy, Emil Barchański: a funerary work, but in situ and open to visit, and tied to a public story.

The last departures

The twenty-fifth Krastal symposium, in Carinthia, moves its second stage to Villach for the first time, into the Stadtpark. The town bulletin tells how the neighbours at first took the sculptors for troublemakers, and ended up bringing them cakes and wine. «SOS Natur» stands today in the Millstatt park.

Then Italy, twice: the granite of Buddusò, in Sardinia, in the summer of 1995, and the sandstone of Fanano, in the Modenese Apennines, in May 1997.

A single city

The next quarter-century closes in around a single city. On the escarpment along the Trasa Łazienkowska stands «Ab Ovo», inside the open-air sculpture gallery opened with the road. In the Park Kazimierzowski, since 2000, the monument to the teachers of the clandestine schooling. At the Pole Mokotowskie, since 2010, «Etiuda».

«Etiuda» is the last large park sculpture she carves — and it is her sister Teresa who finishes it, when her own strength runs out.

All together

Twenty-one works in seven countries, from Sardinia to Moscow.

Almost none ever came home: they stayed where they were made, which is how they had been conceived.

1. 1970 U progu życia Płock
2. 1971 Ręce Moravany
3. 1975 Ab Ovo Warsaw
4. 1976 Sfera Kostanjevica
5. 1976 Zbliżenie Berlin
6. 1977 Cywilizacja I Hoyerswerda
7. 1978 Orzeł Moscow
8. 1978 Cywilizacja II Rostock
9. 1978 Dziecko na chwilę Zamość
10. 1979 Matka z książką Mielec
11. 1980 Schronienie Warsaw · Praga
12. 1982 Zmaganie Nieporęt
13. 1982 Nagrobek Emila Barchańskiego Warsaw · Bródno
14. 1990 Wjazd Nieporęt
15. 1992 SOS Natur Millstatt
16. 1992 Rzeźba Chrystusa Ostrołęka
17. 1995 Łza szczęścia Buddusò
18. 1997 Intymny koncert Fanano
19. 2000 Pomnik Nauczycieli Tajnego Nauczania Warsaw
20. 2008 Ślady Stalowa Wola
21. 2010 Etiuda Warsaw