During studies (1957—1963) she started her creation in graphics, painting, glass-design and photography. At the school the photography was taught as an additional method for graphics and glass design. Yet Natalia LL became engaged in photography more deeply and it became the domain of her first artistic successes. The artist recalls she was fascinated then with the writings of Sartre, Kierkegaard, Camus and with the poetics of Italian films. She noticed that photography offers quite different possibilities of visual forming than painting and graphics: “It seemed to me that through photography a usual, banal reality changes itself into an unique, mysterious event, phenomenon. My photographical activity was for sure the try to find an uncommonness, unusualness in the surrounding world. I was fascinated with how seemingly veracious photography shows this unusualness in a more fully and naturally way than painting or graphics. The photography I was engaged in I would call an existentialistic one.”
Her early photographic works were mainly portraits, often with faces in close-ups.
1962
Participation in exhibitions:
— Ali-Polish Festival of Students Photography, Toruń (1st prize)
— All-Polish Exhibition “Poland ’62”, Warsaw (photography)
Existences 1, 1962
photograph 50x50cm
Existences 2, 1962
photograph 50x50cm
1963
Diploma work at State High School of Fine Arts in Wrocław, in the glass design speciality, made under the supervision of prof. Stanisław Dawski. Becomes the member of Union of Polish Visual Artists.
1964
Becomes the member of Union of Polish Art Photographers.
Marries Andrzej Lachowicz.
Mirror, 1964
photograph 100x66cm
Geography of the face 1, 1964
photograph 100x76cm
Geography of the face 2, 1964
photograph 76x100cm
Geography of the face 3, 1964
photograph 76x100cm
1965
Participation in: District Exhibition of Photography ZPAF, BWA Wrocław
1966
Participation in exhibitions:
— 3rd International Exhibition of Art Photography, CBWA Warsaw
— All-Polish Exhibition of Applied Photography, CBWA Warsaw (prize)
1967
Individual exhibition:
— Portrait, MPiK Gallery, Wrocław Participation in exhibitions:
— Sculpture in photography, CBWA Warsaw (prize)
— All-Polish Exhibition of Photography: Women, CBWA Warsaw (1st prize)
— Von Glück des Menschen, Berlin (photographs)
1968
In the years 1968—1969 she developed researches in the sphere of “erotic photography” — to some point inspired by writings of de Sade and Battaille. Because she also became indisposed towards prevailing artistic fashions (lyrical abstraction in painting and expressive figurativeness in graphics) she tried to find new visual and mental spaces in art. “Erotic” photographs, which were mainly body close-ups, meant a looking for the author’s own identity and suggested also that an intimate feeling of erotic contact is something untranslatable.
Natalia LL made close contacts with the neoavanguard art mainly due to relations with the group of Wrocław artists who elaborated then the conception of “Idea Art”; the most important of them was Jerzy Rosołowicz. The other important person was Jerzy Ludwiński who came to Wrocław in 1967 and led Gallery “Pod Moną Lizą”, the place of meetings of the whole group.
At that time she also made close contacts with Zbigniew Dłubak, the vanguard artist living in Warsaw, who since 1948 was known of his experiments in photography and painting. Dłubak was the important person in Union of Polish Art Photographers and Natalia LL was then included into its Artistic Council. The artistic collaboration with Zbigniew Dłubak and Andrzej Lachowicz was the important factor in Natalia LL activities.
Individual exhibition:
— Fotoausstellung im Ilfot Dresden, Dresden Participation in exhibitions:
— Europhoto ’68, Munich
— IV Zagreb Salon Internationale de Photographie, Zagreb
Mix 1, 1968
photograph 100x70cm
Mix 2, 1968
photograph 100x70cm
1969
Individual exhibition:
— Face Geography, Miicsarnok Museum, Budapest
Participation in exhibitions:
— Foto Expo ’69, BWA Poznań
— All-Polish Exhibition of Young Graphics, BWA Poznań
— 4th All-Polish Exhibition of Graphics, CBWA Warsaw
— Polish Photography, Sofia
— Polish Photography, Belgrade
— 29th International Photographic Salon of Japan, Tokyo
Intimate sphere, 1969
photograph 46x50cm
text: Adam Sobota