Józef Paweł Natanson was born on January 3, 1909, in Cracow, but he spent his childhood in Switzerland, with his parents, National Democracy activists. The Natansons returned to Poland in 1919. They settled in Warsaw, where Józef obtained his high school diploma and where, guided by Prof. Mieczysław Kotarbiński, he studied painting and art history at the Academy of Fine Arts (1930-1934). In 1994, Natanson wrote in an exposition catalogue of his works that Kotarbiński was not a very creative artist but he "told us a lot about the most wonderful artistic periods from Egypt through Greece, the Middle Ages, Renaissance, all the way to contemporary art. It was he who explained to us how Cézanne achieves his monumentality even with a rather minor still life [...], he wanted to instil in us the ambition to achieve similar monumentality in our own art." Natanson's older colleague was Adam Kossowski, assistant at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, with whom years later he founded an artistic society in London.

Following his studies at the Warsaw academy, Józef Natanson went to France. He spent two years studying at the École du Louvre, exhibiting his works at the Parisian Salon d'Automne, and in galleries at the Place Vendôme. Together with other Polish artists living in Paris at the time, among others Tadeusz Koper and Marek Żuławski, he formed a loose group of artists. In the French capitol, Natanson met his paternal uncle, the famous Thadée Natanson, the founder of the journal "La revue blanche" and the first husband of Misia Sert (Godebska), whose appeared in portraits by Bonnard, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec and others. Many years later, he wrote in his memoirs titled Zgrzyt otwierającej się bramy that Paris had an enormous impact on his painting and thinking about art. The city and its painters, especially the surrealists, whose presence was very prominent at the time, dazzled him, intimidated him and enchanted him.

After his studies, Natanson travelled through Europe, mainly Italy, where he surveyed the best of world art in museums, churches and palaces. For some time, he lived in Taormin, Sicilly, where he entertained his painter colleagues from Poland. Years later, writer and journalist Stefania Kossowska said that it was there that she met her husband, Adam. In 1938, the painter held his first exhibition in Poland and, as it turned out, it was the only one for a long time. Every one of his thirty works displayed in Warsaw burned down in a fire in September 1939.

During the War, Józef Natanson was in Paris. He joined the Polish Exile Armed Forces that were organising in France and completed an accelerated course in the Military School in Coëtquidan. He was assigned to the Podhale Rifle Brigade and participated in operations in the Narvik area. Later, he provided illustrations on the Norwegian campaign that appeared in Karol Zbyszewski's book, Fight for Narvik (1940).

He was evacuated to Scotland and found himself in Lucars, near Edinburgh. While awaiting further events of the war, he painted and displayed his works along with those of other Polish and non-Polish soildier-painters (among them, Koper). He became involved in the cultural department of the Polish armed forces in the West. Together with Tadeusz Lipski, he organised art exhibitions about Poland in English museums and galleries, that were standing empty during the war. Exhibition reports made no mention of his name - he was a soldier. He did not take part in the French campaign of 1944 but, as before in Scotland, now in the liberated Europe, he organised exhibitions on Poland along with Antoni Borman.

In 1945, he moved to London. Together with Adam Kossowski, Maciej Mars and an English graduate of the Warsaw academy, Peggy Erskine, he formed the Decorative Arts Studio and made his living by selling ceramics. He wrote for the "Collins Magazine", and with Kossowski and Lipski, he wrote articles for Polish and English press. Finally, in 1944, no. 622 of "The Studio" published their article Some Aspects of Polish Art. Natanson returned to painting and historical studies. His work on the catalogue of Sir Harold Wernher's art collection in Luton Hoo allowed him to prepare two important books on Early Christian ivory sculpture, Gothic Ivories (1951) and Early Christian Ivories (1953).

Józef Natanson took part in Polish and British group exhibitions in England, although it is difficult to find traces of his English artistic activity in the years 1945-1955. Exhibition catalogues and photographs from that time have not been preserved. His paintings from that period were already ahead of artistic trends of the 1950s. His monumental realistic and surrealistic canvas caught the interest of film producers, who began to hire him for painting set designs for "special effects." The first film, for which he did special painting was the British Red Shoes from 1947, but it was in the 1950s that Natanson established himself in the film industry. In the beginning, he painted some additional landscapes, backgrounds or optical illusions for scenes filmed in the studio. Later, he created full settings for scenes filmed outside, among others, for Vincent Korda. In the mid-1950s, Italian cinematographers became interested in Natanson's work and, therefore, he moved to Rome. He began collaborating with Cinecitta and filmmakers: Carmina Gallone (Puccini, Madame Butterfly), Marc Allégret (Eterna Femmina), Robert Wise (Helen of Troy), Glauco Pellegrini (Symphony of Love), Vittorio de Sica (Miracle in Milan), Joseph Mankiewicz (Cleopatra), Franco Zeffirelli and, above all, Federico Fellini. Natanson painted sets to Fellini's La Dolce Vita, Casanova, Boccaccio'70, and especially Satyricon. He painted sets to over 80 films and he played in episodes of some. While living in Rome, he met his future wife, journalist Ann Pearce.

When the trend of filming great historical epics faded, Natanson turned back to painting, which resulted in individual exhibitions in Paris, Perugia and Rome, as well as, group exhibitions in Great Britain, USA and Italy. He was not invited to a 1991 exhibition at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw titled "We are" ("Jesteśmy"). However, in 1993 and 1994, the Worldwide Polish Community Association organised an exposition of his works in Warsaw, Cracow, Gdańsk and Rzeszów. In 2001, Polish television made a documentary on the life and art of Józef Natanson, broadcast by TV Polonia in December 2001.
Józef Natanson passed away in September 2003, in Rome.

The work presented is a gift of the Painter and his Family to the Archives of Polish Emigration and comes from a series titled The Golden Age. In the 1970s, Józef Natanson began to create compositions guided by the overriding principal of the harmony of colour and space. He found a subject that allowed for numerous combinations of compositions and themes, but only if they all spoke about pleasant things. Next to fairytale landscapes, prehistoric forests and blue skies, he began to paint young women in the nude, moving gracefully and playing with each other. The painting given to the Archives is titled Three Graces.

Mirosław Adam Supruniuk
Translation Marta Sobieszek

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