Polish artist Natalia LL passed away on Friday, August 12, 2022. She was 85.
Natalia LL was born Natalia Lach on April 18, 1937 in Żywiec, Poland, and grew up in the industrial southern city of Bielsko-Biała.
After obtaining her Msc. from the State College of Fine Arts (now the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts) in Wrocław in 1963, she earned a diploma from the Association of Polish Art Photographers in 1964.
In 1970, she co-founded PERMAFO, an artists’ group and gallery, with Zbigniew Dłubak and Andrzej Lachowicz.
Since 1975 she was engaged in the international feminist art movement and took part in various symposia and exhibitions.
Following a serious illness in the late ’70s, the artist turned her focus from consumerism and pornography to mythological subjects.
From 2004 to 2013, Natalia LL worked as a senior lecturer at the University of Fine Arts in Poznań.
In May 2007, she was awarded the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis. She received the Katarzyna Kobro award in 2013 and was honored in 2018 with the Rosa Schapire Art Prize.
In 2018, the ZW Foundation was founded to preserve the works of Natalia LL as well as to provide a “place for exchanging scientific ideas and creative thoughts”.
The 2019 removal of a Natalia LL work from Warsaw’s National Museum sparked protests nationwide and drew global attention to Poland’s increasingly censorious government.
Her work is held in the collections of the International Center of Photography, New York; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague; the Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; and the National Museums in Gdańsk-Oliwa, Poznan, Warsaw, and Wrocław, et al.
Natalia LL was preceded in death by her husband Andrzej Lachowicz.
Her funeral arrangement is yet to be announced by the family.