Běla Kolářová

Kolárová was known—with her partner, the poet and artist Jirí Kolàr—as an influential figure in Prague intellectual circles of the early 1960s. Kolárová's experimentation with cameraless photography began in 1961, when she aligned with the progressive art movement Križovatka (Crossroads), which aimed for new conceptual modes of expression antithetical to Soviet-sanctioned Socialist Realism. Kolárová began creating what could be called "artificial negatives," pressing small domestic and natural objects into a sheet of soft wax and then exposing the impressions to photographic paper under shifting light. Kolárová's experimental approach to photography and assemblage-based practices was groundbreaking for its time. The pictures titled Roetgenogram kruhu (Radiogram of Circle) were likely made by placing objects on photosensitive paper on a spinning gramophone and then exposing them to light.

Kolárová began experimenting with cameraless photography in 1961, creating "artificial negatives" by pressing small domestic and natural objects into sheets of soft wax and then exposing the impressions to photographic paper under shifting light. Captivated by the ability of light to record the materiality of these objects, Kolárová made increasingly abstract work, which culminated in these concentric light images.