Maria Anto occupies a distinctive position in Polish post-war art. At a time marked by abstraction and the emergence of conceptual art, she chose an independent path, developing a figurative visual language incorporating elements of Surrealism, fantastical art and magic realism.

Anto’s paintings are populated by people, animals, plants and buildings in enigmatic landscapes where everyday life and fantasy merge. Family members, self-portraits and familiar places in Warsaw recur, as do factories and industrial areas transformed into dreamlike, sometimes threatening environments. Behind the fairy-tale surface of the images lies a psychological tension between security and unease, darkness and wonder. Her childhood in German-occupied Warsaw, shaped by war and loss, provides an important background to this visual world.

Anto received international recognition at an early stage. She represented Poland at the São Paulo Biennial in 1963 and, in 1966, had a major solo exhibition at Zachęta in Warsaw. Further exhibitions followed, including in Caracas, Stockholm and Milan.

Throughout her artistic career, Anto remained faithful to her personal visual language. Her paintings do not lend themselves to easy categorisation: the real becomes strange, the fantastic credible and the everyday imbued with mystery.