Magdalena Abakanowicz was a pioneer of radical sculpture based on textile and installation in the early 1960s. Her earliest works were monumental hanging textiles, which she named “Abakans,” and which functioned as both objects and spaces. In the 1970s, her work started to become more figurative, as exemplified by the headless and fragmented human forms she created in materials such as bronze, wood, stone, and clay. This phase represents the peak of her artistic output. Abakanowicz's works have been part of many exhibitions and collections around the world, such as the Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Hiroshima City Museum; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,  Madrid; National Museum, Wroclaw; Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Art Institute, Chicago; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; and festivals such as the Venice Biennale, São Paulo biennial, Sydney biennial, and others.

As for many of Abakanowicz’s radical contemporaries, the local cultural and socio-political context constituted a major source of inspiration for the development of her art practice. Reflections about the individual’s existence in a collective society characterised Abakanowicz’s work beginning in the early 1960’s. Her textile sculptures were gradually followed by an extensive series of humanoid sculptures of sitting, standing, and moving human torsos realised in different materials. In the work Three Figures (Family), the composition directs the viewer to the uncertainty and struggles felt by individuals in contemporary society. Realities such as overpopulated cities and socio-political and economic migrations can be seen as creating a world that encroaches on the individual. The three figures that make up this piece are headless, hollow, and stand at different heights, making the viewer confront them in an overwhelming mass, while, symbolically, this confrontation can be seen as expressing the loneliness and isolation of the self.