Modernist wooden sculpture

Technique: exotic sapele wood sculpture

Dimensions: approx. 230 cm (height)

Object: The sculpture was made of exotic Brazilian sapele wood during a plein-air workshop in Hajnówka in 1978 . It presents a monumental female figure conveyed using simplified shapes, referencing Cubism and Modernism. In 2004, it underwent renovation work, but this only caused its condition to deteriorate. Finally, in 2019, after dry rot caused the sculpture to fall, it was impregnated with epoxy resin.

Place: The sculpture stands in front of the entrance to a tenement house from Piwna Street. The ground floor apartment housed the studio of sculptors Krystyna Filipska-Frejer and her husband Romuald Frejer. Currently, The Old Gdańsk Beer pub & café calls it its home. A small plaque commemorating Romuald Frejer was attached on the tenement house’s façade, next to the sculpture.

Information about the author: Krystyna Filipska-Frejer is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. She creates metal and ceramic sculptures, incredibly imaginative and dynamic, while at the same time delicate in form and composition. She took part in many international exhibitions and in the post-war reconstruction of sculptures in the Gdańsk Old Town. In the 1950s and 60s, she and her husband actively participated in the city’s cultural life, co-creating the famous Bim Bom theatre, among other initiatives. In the 1990s she moved to the USA, where she played an active part in the Polish community’s artistic life. In Poland, her works can be appreciated in Biskupin, Sopot and Gdańsk, as well as in the collections of the Central Maritime Museum and the National Museum in Gdańsk.

Condition of the object: good, renovated

Owner: Krystyna Filipska-Frejer

Author of the entry: Kora Kowalska