these are very realistic and soothing to look at. Many of her other works have been regarded as impolite and are not what one might call "tasteful". Bird In 1959 Alina Szapocznikow created the sculpture Bird in her studio in Warsaw. Bird was part of a series of abstract works that Szapocznikow created in 1958–1960 that were characterized by their inverted center of gravity and their organic and distinctive expressive forms resembling shapes in nature. Bird is made from cement and metal, exceptionally heavy materials for its dimensions—the sculpture stands 166 cm tall. With the bird's neck and beak pointing straight upwards to the sky and its wings drawn together, the sculpture suggests the tension in the animal's body during the precise moment of departing from earth, no longer fully on the ground but not yet in the sky. There are several photographs of Szapocznikow with Bird, including one made by the renowned photographer Tadeusz Rolke. The sculpture was last exhibited at Polish Painting and Sculpture in 1961 at the Gres Gallery in Washington, D.C., and was considered lost for over 50 years until it was rediscovered in the outhouse of an art collector in upstate New York. When Bird was sold at an auction in April 2016 it broke the record for the most expensive Polish sculpture. This work was shown to the public for the first time in 56 years at The Hepworth Wakefield art gallery. Exhibitions (solo and two-person) 1960 – 2nd Exhibition of the Sculptures of Alina Szapocznikow at BWA Arsenał, Poznań, Poland 1960 – Alina Szapocznikow (Drawings) at Farsettiarte, Prato, Italy 1960 – Alina Szapocznikow Confrontations at Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warsaw, Poland 1960 – Sculptures of Alina Szapocznikow at 13th Festival of Fine Arts, BWA Gallery, Sopot, Poland 1961 – Alina Szapocznikow (along with Roman Cieślewicz) at Gallery of Fine Arts, Rijeka, Yugoslavia 1961 – Alina Szapocznikow at Kordegarda Gallery, Warsaw, Poland 1962 – Alina Szapocznikow at 31st Biennale, Venice, Italy 1967 – Alina Szapocznikow at Florence Houston Brown Gallery, Paris, France 1967 – Sculptures of Alina Szapocznikow at Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland 1968 – Alina Szapocznikow at Cogeime Gallery, Brussels, Belgium 1969 – Outdoor show at Port-Barcarès, France 1970 – Envahissement de Tumeurs (Invasion of Tumors) at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1971 – Instant et Chose at Aurora Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland 1973 – Alina Szapocznikow – Tumeurs, Herbier at City of