The Great Toscano - Igor Mitoraj

At the foot of the Areva Tower, set on a granite pavement, stands since 1983 the bronze bust of a truncated giant, which is reminiscent of the statues bequeathed to us by Antiquity. With this sculpture, the artist intends to remind passers-by that in this still young neighbourhood, history and memory will one day find an important and necessary place.

A word about the artist

Born in 1944 in Germany to a Polish mother and a French father, Igor Mitoraj graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow where he was a pupil of Tadeusz Kantor. At the beginning of the 1970s, fascinated by pre-Columbian arts, he went to Mexico, where he began sculpting. He returned to Europe in 1974 and exhibited in Paris in 1976 at the La Hune gallery. In 1979, he went to Carrara in Tuscany where he began to use marble as his main medium, while continuing to work in terracotta and bronze. In 1983 he set up his studio in Pietrasanta. Igor Mitoraj is considered to be one of Poland's most eminent contemporary artists. At the age of 70, Igor Mitoraj died of leukaemia in 2014.