Marta Pan

Marta Pan (12 June 1923, Budapest – 12 October 2008, Paris) was a French abstract sculptor of Hungarian origin.

Marta Pan
Marta Pan discussing her work, 1995
Born	(1923-06-12)12 June 1923 Budapest, Hungary
Died	12 October 2008(2008-10-12) (aged 85) Paris, France
Known for	Sculpture

Early life

Marta Pan was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1923.^[1] She studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Budapest.^[1]

Work

Pan's sculptures are highly concerned with balance, symmetry, and geometry.^[1] She often created her works so that they were site-specific and worked with the surrounding environment.^[1] In 1946 Pan moved to Paris, where she met Constantin Brâncuşi and Fernand Léger.^[1] In 1952 she married André Wogenscky, who was a studio assistant to Le Corbusier.^[1] Her early sculptures were highly influenced by the architecture of Le Corbusier.^[1] In 1956, Pan created Le Teck, which consisted of two moveable parts.^[1] The choreographer Maurice Béjart later created a ballet, also entitled Le Teck, inspired directly by Pan's sculpture.^[1] Béjart's ballet was premiered on the roof of Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation building in Marseille, France.^[1] Until 1960, all of Pan's sculptures consisted of this two-part construction method, which allowed one piece to be moved, thus altering the work.^[2] In 1990 she made Celle floating sculpture in Italy for the Gori collection - Fattoria di Celle.^[3]

Death

Pan died on 12 October 2008 in Paris, France.^[1]

Public collections

Pan's work can be seen in a number of public institutions and locations, including:

• Floating Sculpture (1973), Dallas City Hall, Dallas (Texas), USA^[4]
• Sculpture flottante, Otterlo (1960), Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands^[5]
• La Perspective (1992), Musée de la Ville de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Yvelines, Île-de-France), France^[6]
• Floating Sculpture No. 3 (1972), Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee (Wisconsin), USA^[7]
• Signe infini (1993), intersection of autoroutes A46 and A6 at Ambérieux (Rhône, Rhône-Alpes), France.
• Celle Floating Sculpture (1990), Collezione Gori Fattoria di Celle - Collezione Gori, Italy

Recognition

In 2001 Pan was awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale award for Sculpture from the Japan Art Society.^[1] Pan's work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.^[8]

Selected works

• 
  Amphitheatre
• 
  Floating sculpture
• 
  Floating sculpture