“Stephanie Magdziak is an artist of the first order who combines astonishing technical skill with a profound sympathy for her subjects, whether human or animal, topographic or architectural.”

ROBBY BARNETT - Founding Director, Pilobolus Dance Company

“A distinguished draughtswoman and painter, Stephanie Magdziak has long been appreciated for her uncanny ability to capture the inner and outer aspects of her subjects in two dimensions. Magdziak is now virtually single-handedly reviving the art of the sculptural portrait relief. Drawing on a tradition that extends back to the Classical world, Magdziak is particularly inspired by the art medals and larger-scale reliefs created in the late 19th century by such masters as Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Henri Chapu. Acutely sensitive to line, form and texture, Magdziak manages to seize both the corporeal and the intangible. Her extraordinary ability to join physical appearance and character touches the soul of her subjects and makes her reliefs not only apt likenesses, but artworks of a high order.”

JOHN CUADRADO - Former Art & Antiques Editor, Architectural Digest

“I find Stephanie Magdziak’s work of a quality, which for me has been missing in sculpture for far too long. When looking at her relief portraits one is certainly engaged with the figure as we are meant to be. However, like the work of Canova and Thorvaldesen, she brings our eyes to the ground space upon which the figure is depicted. Like Cézanne and others, the pulsation between figure and ground gives Magdziak’s work brilliance not often found. One could also compare her work to that of the late nineteenth century sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. His low reliefs treat the ground upon which the figure rests, both as space and surface, with a degree of simultaneity that we also see in the work of Stephanie Magdziak.”

MICHAEL GRAVES - Architect

“We love the bas-relief. I commissioned it as a birthday present for my husband and it came out great. Its three-dimensional quality, the way the light plays on the different surfaces and the sheer physicality of bronze are all qualities that make it feel very special. It is also wonderful that the same mold could be used to make a resin copy, which looked like stone but was very light, and a breeze to take with us on the plane as a gift for my father-in-law.”

INGRID DAUBECHIES - Mathematician, Duke University