Born in Kwilicz, near Poznań, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, then devoted himself to painting and lithography [1], including the creation of posters for the cinema [2], which earned him a national prize in 1953. In 1959, he settled in Paris. His early films were surreal animations, some only a few seconds long, including several comic abecedaria. His most acclaimed early films were Był sobie raz (Once Upon A Time) (1957) and Dom (House) (1958, with Jan Lenica). In 1959, he worked with Chris Marker for Les Astronautes. Major works of this period include the nightmarish Jeux des anges (1964) and the stop motion film Renaissance (1963), which uses reverse motion to depict various destroyed objects (a prayer book, a stuffed toy, etc.) re-assembling themselves, only to be destroyed again when the last object (a bomb) is complete. In 1967, he directed his first animated feature film, Théâtre de Monsieur Madame Kabal: un film dessiné pour les adultes (Mr. and Mrs. Kabal's Theatre).
