Robert Natkin

For Duke Ellington

1978

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.