When encouraging a graduate in chemistry and biology from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Stefan Batory University to take up photography, Jan Bułhak probably did not expect that Obrąpalska would go down in history not as a photographer following his legacy of pictorialism but as a representative of modernity.
Soon after the war, Obrąpalska, aside from photographing idealized portraits and landscapes, embarked on formal experimentations associated with Surrealism and New Reality. Motivated by a competition for documentary photography of artistic value announced by the Ministry of Culture in 1948, Obrąpalska, after having carried out several tests, decided to make black-and-white photos of a mixture of two fluids of contrasting colours (water and ink). For the Diffusion in Liquids she received awards and invitations to the groundbreaking exhibitions of avant-garde artists from the circle of Zbigniew Dłubak (such as I Exhibition of Modern Art in Kraków, 1948), and yet, she met with severe criticism from conservative pictorialist critics, activists and photographers from Poznań.
The controversy over Obrąpalska resulted in Diffusion in Liquids rising to the rank of a symbol, marking a breakthrough moment in the post-war Polish photography and—in reference to the title—a diffusion of the radically different points of view of artistic circles. In 1948, Obrąpalska published a text titled Surreal Effects in Photography in the World of Photography magazine (edited in her apartment in Poznań), in which she legitimized the introduction of a new theme to her work:
I believe that the course of action I have tried to initiate may lead to the discovery and capture of the whole range of phenomena, allowing the creation of new beauty and expanding the possibilities of photography as an ever-vital and progressive art.
What’s striking in her statement is the desire for beauty and her willingness to approach surrealism in terms of formal effects. Obrąpalska seems to have retreated, defending herself against potential attack. From today's perspective it sounds senseless, but at that time the ideological struggle among artists was brutal and could have serious consequences. One of the leading critics of the post-war period, Janusz Bogucki, wrote in favour of Diffusion in Liquids:
The subject of these images is both an emotion accompanying the inquiry into the nature of the coexistence of two liquids of different specific weight and density, as well as an emotion of imagination revealing a musical expression of flowing shapes resulting from this co-existence.
Obrąpalska gave metaphorical titles to her subsequent works documenting diffusion: Przekleństwo (The Curse), Tancerka (The Dancer), Cisza (The Silence), Plama (The Spill), Krajobraz Fantastyczny (The Fantastic Landscape) ... She also created solarized versions of selected prints from the series. Obrąpalska is regarded as a master of darkroom photographic techniques. However, her formal experiments were interrupted to some extent by the doctrine of Socialist Realism imposed on creative circles by the communist government. In that period, Obrąpalska, a committed activist and organizer of artistic life, took on compulsory themes revolving around labour issues, such as workers' efforts to build a socialist state. Characteristically, her almost eclectic openness to outside impulses allowed her to carry out photographic experiments, although they became peripheral.
The subsequent generations of artists interested in the modern form owe much to Obrąpalska’s activities and experiments (her influence is particularly evident in the works of artists from Poznań such as Bronisław Schlabs and Andrzej Pawłowski). From 1954, Obrąpalska was less involved in artistic photography in favour of professional nature photography. She undertook commissions from the Agricultural University and the Botanical Gardens in which she employed her knowledge of biology and botany. In the 70s, an aggravated allergy to Metol made her refrain from laboratory work, and subsequently also from photography. She finally had time to devote herself to philately.
Author: Adam Mazur, April 2015, transl. GS, June 2015