Abakanowicz was born in 1930. She came of age against the tumultuous background of World War II. Today she is revered for her uncompromising vision, developed in her native Poland under the hostile eyes of the repressive Communist regime that was in power for most of her adult life. She had, by the 1960s, gained the beginning of an international reputation as a sculptor in soft materials, monumental environments called Abakans. Her retrospective after Paris Musée d Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris moved to America to be shown in seven important museums. She changed sculpture from  object to look at into  space to experience . Her largest group of monumental 106 figures permanently installed in Chicago consists of 106 individualities in walking movement, headless shells, like bark fallen of a tree or a rag fallen of a mummy.