Ludwik Dutkiewicz was born in Poland in 1921. A refugee from Communism, he migrated to Australia in 1949. After settling in Adelaide he was elected a Fellow of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts, in 1951, and in the same year held a joint exhibition with his older brother, Wladyslaw, who had arrived several months after him.
In 1952 Ludwik staged a solo exhibition and then won a suite of awards and prizes in quick succession. Among them were the Cornell Prize in 1953 and 1954. He joined the staff of the Botanic Gardens in 1953 as a botanical illustrator and worked there for thirty years. He also lectured for several years in the South Australian School of Art before his activities in experimental film, on which he worked with photographer and cinematographer Ian Davidson, took over his spare time.
From the 1950s he worked in a variety of idioms and media, apart from his predominantly abstract and expressionist painting, in theatre,  film, photography and sculpture. He painted his last series in 1990, but continued working on and with paper.
His fine art is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the
National Collection (now Artbank in Sydney) and other public institutions. His work as a botanical illustrator is
also internationally acclaimed, and has been published and exhibited by Carnegie Mellon University.