Robert Natkin (American, 1930-2010)
Natkin rose to prominence in the late 1960s-1970s through his paintings that wove Abstraction together with Post-Impressionist colors and forms. The lyrical playfulness of his compositions are often compared to Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, and Pierre Bonnard. He often used materials as “stencils” (to include cloth and netting) to create a worked-over texture and appearance, which was also tied to a grid-like or patterned structure. Natkin wed artist Judith Dolnick in 1957 and the couple lived and worked in Chicago for many years, through the Wells Street Gallery. Natkin moved to Redding, Connecticut in 1970, where he lived the remainder of his life. In a 1979 interview with the New York Times, Natkin said of his studio “It’s full of the voices of my paintings…of all the victories and defeats I’ve known there.”
