[4][5] His parents' relationship was only fleeting and he returned with his mother to Poland after the end of World War II.

It seems doubtful that he graduated after only two years since in 1968, despite travel restrictions placed on ordinary people by the then Communist regime, he was somehow able to move to Paris, partly to seek out his biological father whom he failed to meet, and to continue his art studies at the École Supérieur des Beaux-Arts.

In 2006, he was commissioned to create new bronze doors and a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome.

The Italian culture minister Stefano Contini announced that the artist's sculpture entitled "Daedalus" would remain in Pompeii permanently as a gift to Italy.

However, Mitoraj introduced a post-modern twist with ostentatiously truncated limbs, emphasising the damage sustained by many authentic classical sculptures.