Maria Gabankova

About the Artist

Maria Gabankova was born in former Czechoslovakia and grew up with her brother Jan in the family of the artists Antonia Laník-Gabanek and Jozef Gabanek. Following the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Maria's family left for Austria and later immigrated to Canada. She now lives with her husband Aleš Březina in Toronto. Since 1978 she has exhibited extensively in Canada, the United States, Czech Republic, and elsewhere. In 2007, Piquant Editions published Body Broken/Body Redeemed, a selection of Maria’s works, with 68 pages of full-colour reproductions and an introduction by John Franklin. From 1991 to 2015, Maria was an associate professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design University, in Toronto, where she taught figure drawing, painting, and portraiture. Portraiture is a special focus in the artist's practice with an impressive record of commissioned portraits of well-known figures in Czech and Slovak culture, as well as portraits for the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.