Igor Mitoraj was born in 1944 in Oederan, Poland.
Born to a Polish mother and French father, he spent his youth in Poland, near Krakow. After studying at the art school in Bielsko-Biała, at the age of nineteen, he enrolled in the painting faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where, for the last three years, he attended the courses of Tadeusz Kantor (1914-1990), a well-known painter, director and theatre set designer. In 1967 he participated in a group exhibition at the Krzysztofory Gallery in Krakow with other students of the Academy.
In 1968, Mitoraj, on the advice of Kantor, left Poland and came to Paris to expand his cultural education. In the same year, he enrolled in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. The great success of his first major solo exhibition, organized in 1976 at the Galerie La Hune in Paris, led him to devote himself exclusively to sculpture. In the same period, he was awarded the "Prix de la sculpture de Montrouge". The French Minister of Culture offered him a studio in Montmartre in the Bateau Lavoir, while the following year he was invited to participate in the XLII Venice Biennale.
In 1987 he bought a large atelier in Pietrasanta and, in 1989, presented his works for the first time at the New York Academy of Art. In the following years he exhibited his works in numerous solo exhibitions, received invitations to exhibit in the most important international museums as well as prestigious assignments for the creation of monumental sculptures in the main metropolises. His sculptures, inspired by classical mythology, are installed in Milan, Rome, London, Paris, Atlanta and Tokyo.
In the years 2002 and 2006 he devoted himself to the sets and costumes for Giacomo Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" and "Tosca", performed as part of the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago. In Rome, in 2003, he installed the monumental Goddess Rome and in 2006 the monumental doors of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. In 2009 he created two major projects: the sets and costumes for Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida" at Boboli Gardens in Florence and the monumental bronze door of the Jesuit Church in Warsaw. In 2011, the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento welcomed his monumental works. With this prestigious première, the archaeological site opened to contemporary art. In 2013 for the centenary of the "Verona Arena Foundation" he created the scenography of Giuseppe Verdi's "Messa da Requiem". In 2014, on the 950th anniversary of the founding of the Cathedral of Pisa, his works were exhibited in the Piazza del Duomo, inside the Palazzo dell'Opera del Duomo and the Sinopie Museum. Once again, Mitoraj brought contemporary art to a place it has never seen before.
Igor Mitoraj died in Paris in 2014 and by his express will was buried in Pietrasanta, italy.
In 2016, an exhibition was held in the prestigious archaeological site of Pompeii where, crowning Mitoraj's great dream, about thirty of his extraordinary monumental sculptures were on display.
