and such a transitory instant are the only symbol of our earthy passage."Alina Szapocznikow died March 2 in Praz-Coutant due to the last phase of her illness, bone cancer and advancing paralysis. Reception After the artist's death, Alina Szapocznikow's work was organized into a number of shows. In 1975, the posthumous reception of her work reached its peak where her work was shown extensively throughout Poland, lengthy articles and essays were also written. In the late 1970s and 80s, her work was shown in group exhibitions, but not in many solo exhibitions. In recent years, Alina Szapocznikw has been "rediscovered" by the public and major museums have organized shows including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Notable works War Throughout her career, Szapocznikow explored the fragmented human body through sculptures of bronze and later used modern plastic materials including polyester, polyurethane, and wiring. Influenced by her experiences as a Polish Jewish woman during World War II, she uses the distorted, decaying, and fragmented human body as a witness to wartime experiences, ultimately criticizing the valorization of labor and militarism. Exhumed, from 1955, is a portrayal of the body after war with a pitted surface texture and hollowed torso. The work evokes heroic Herculean figures and victims of the 79 CE Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii, further driving the idea that valorized bodies are not immune to the impact of war. Human body Alina Szapocznikow is known for her sculptures of the fragmented female. Made in 1956, Difficult Age is constructed of patinated plaster—a rather delicate medium for sculpture—that can easily be read as a metaphor for the fragility and impermanence of youth and beauty. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Alina Szapocznikow began her Tumors Personified series experimenting with polyester resin and polyurethane—a new use of materials which most artists had not utilized at this time. She abstracts feminine sensuality in Illuminated Lips, Marching Lips, and Illuminated Breast among others from 1966 on, which transforms female body parts into utilitarian objects and changes their function. Her male contemporaries (e.g., César Baldaccini, Arman) had exhausted this notion of the mechanized body, but Szapocznikow's functional household objects maintain a strange sensuality. One of her most recognized and well known works is Grands Ventres (Big Bellies) which depicts two large bellies stacked on top of each other, each around five feet tall. Compared to her other works regarding the body,