Biography

British of Polish origins and based in Italy, Marta Czok was born in Beirut (Lebanon) in 1947. The following year, her family moved to London as political refugees. She lived there until 1974, completing her studies at St Martin’s School of Art and taking part for several years in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Over the past forty years, she has exhibited her works worldwide, with collaborations such as the “Alitalia per l’Arte” project, the Albemarle Gallery in London and the French Embassy to the Holy See. In 2008, the Polish national television TV Polonia dedicated a documentary to her in which the relationship between her work and the Second World War was highlighted.

Among her most recent exhibitions, several deserve a special mention, including Icons&Idols, a multimedia show held in 2013 at Museo MACRO in Rome; the retrospective exhibition at Castello di Calatabiano, organised by Museo MACS in Catania, 2014; her show Mother Rome at Museo Carlo Bilotti in Rome in 2016; her solo exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture in Warsaw, which was held in 2017; the exhibition Baroque Intrusions at Museo del Barocco al Palazzo Chigi di Ariccia, Rome in 2018; her retrospective show O Nas at Konstanciński Dom Kultury Hugonówka in Poland in 2023.

Marta Czok has worked on several touring shows, including the one dedicated to Children of War and of the Shoah at Palazzo Ferrajoli (Rome), Museo Civico di Albano and Palazzo Antico Ghetto (Padua) and About Us, an exhibition on the theme of humanity, at Palazzo dei Papi (Viterbo), Palazzo Zuckermann (Padua) and Palazzo Zenobio (Venice). In Poland, since 2020, the show To Nazywasz Sztuka? has toured first in Warsaw at the Museum of Caricature, and then in Lublin at the Centrum Spotkania Kultur, with future destinations to be announced.

Since 2020, a Foundation named after her hosts her permanent collection in a dedicated Museum in Castel Gandolfo, Rome, with an additional Project Space in the historic centre of Venice. Fondazione Marta Czok is recognised by the National Register of the Third Sector in Italy and is part of World Art Foundations.

With Fondazione Marta Czok, she presented the exhibitions The Rise and Fall of the Ideal City (in collaboration with Urban Visions Film Festival and TAKFLIX), Fabrica, De Innocentia at Palazzo Valdina at the Chamber of Deputies (under the patronage of the Polish Embassy in Rome and the Presidency of the Commission for Culture, Science, Education), and the exhibitions EX_PATRIA (also under the patronage of the Polish Embassy in Rome and selected by Contemporary Lynx Magazine as one of the best events during Biennale Arte 2024) and URBE, at Palazzo Montecitorio of the Italian Parliament, where she was the first contemporary artist to be exhibited in the Galleria dei Busti.

Marta Czok lives and works in Castel Gandolfo (Rome).

“All that I am is in my paintings, so I don’t feel the need to appear or speak like an «artist». I imagine that deep down I’m a revolutionary and my battle is against the ridiculous abuse of power, whether it is caused by the State or the Church. It is all in my paintings, even though I sometimes included in a delicate, cautious way.” Marta Czok