Robert Natkin
Robert Natkin Abstract Lithograph Signed Numbered
1993

Name: Robert Natkin Abstract Lithograph Signed Numbered
Brand: Robert Natkin
Price: 2150 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Soft pastel colors in floating smudges lay between and around lyrical abstract geometric and organic forms giving a diaphanous color and shape harmony to the work. Diaphone being a style of two-part polyphonic singing, the simultaneous combination of two or more tones or melodic lines (the term derives from the Greek word for “many sounds.”) Critic Clement Greenberg compared Natkin's work to light itself as it intensifies and fades, translucent, vaporous, porous. Natkin is considered an abstract painter whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction. He was born in Chicago and from the early 1950s created paintings in the permanent collections of major museums around the world as well as in corporate and private collections and exhibited in leading galleries in the U.S., Europe and Japan. His work has been written about extensively by the art critic, Peter Fuller, who finds a strong spirituality embedded in his style. Peter continues by saying he is certainly an outsider in terms of American tradition. For Natkin, the stage, the transformations of theatrical lighting and the proscenium arch are central, the proscenium arch frames the opening between the stage and the auditorium in some theaters. During a video interview Robert described a vivid and intense dream he had at age five that he believed to be most significant and beautiful and the memory of which he has retained. He jumped into a pool of water filled with floating shapes and forms amongst beautiful wet ooze. Unframed the piece measures 21" h x 42.5" w and is numbered 22 from an edition of 75

Creator:

Robert Natkin (1930-2010, American)

Creation Year:

1993

Dimensions:

Height: 41 in (104.14 cm)Width: 52.5 in (133.35 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

Abstract Expressionist

Period:

1990-1999

Condition:

Lithograph in great condition, few marks on the original frame.

Gallery Location:

Detroit, MI

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU128617691492

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Robert Natkin

Robert Natkin was born in Chicago on November 7, 1930 into a large family of Russian Jewish immigrants. In 1945 the family moved to Tennessee though soon returned to Chicago where Natkin would attend the Art Institute of Chicago (1948-1952). The museum’s collection of Post-Impressionist paintings, especially those of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse and the whimsical abstractions of Paul Klee, were significant influences on the young artist. Natkin’s influences outside the art world included frequent trips to the Field Museum of Natural History where he was exposed to stylized Native American and Peruvian textiles. Introduced to Abstract-Expressionism in New York in 1952, Natkin was especially drawn to the works of Willem de Kooning who’s agitated marks he began to emulate though after returning to Chicago in 1953 he abandoned ties to action painting and began to form what would become his familiar color field abstraction motif. In 1957 Natkin, now married to fellow artist Judith Dolnick, opened the Wells Street Gallery which showed the works of like-minded Chicago artists including sculptor John Chamberlain and photographer Aaron Siskind as well as New York artists they admired. Due to limited patronage however this was a short-lived venture and, seeking greater opportunities, the couple moved to New York in 1959. Natkin continued to develop bold bright fields of color and texture in his paintings finding success among the Poindexter Galleries stable of up-and-coming artists. Immersed in New York’s dynamic art scene through the 1960s and 70s, Natkin continued to evolve his style through his Apollo series, Field Mouse series, and Intimate Lighting series which includes Remembrance is the Secret of Redemption, Forgetfulness Leads to Exile. Other series followed in a long and successful career. Natkin died in Danbury, Connecticut, on April 20, 2010. Robert Natkin has been the subject of numerous one-man exhibitions and has been included in many more group exhibitions. His work is in the permanent collections of dozens of national and international museums including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Additionally Natkin’s colossal 20 x 42 foot mural, executed in 1992, can be seen in the lobby of New York’s Rockefeller Center.