Robert NatkinLarge 1960s Abstract Lithograph Field Mouse II Robert Natkin, 1969

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Large "Field Mouse II (1969) Lithograph


Robert Natkin (1930-2010) was a New York artist known for his abstract expressionist paintings.
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Robert Natkin (1930-2010) was a New York artist known for his abstract expressionist paintings.
Born in 1930 in Chicago, Robert Natkin grew up in an extended Russian-Jewish immigrant family. In 1948 he began studies at the Art School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was strongly influenced by the Post-Impressionists and Abstract Expressionism, the latter through an article in Life magazine. In 1952 he lived, briefly, in New York where he came under the influence of Willem de Kooning.

In 1953, Natkin returned to Chicago and began exhibiting, occasionally, in shows and exhibitions. He became closely associated with other Chicago artists, such as Stanley Sourelis, Ronald Slowinski, Richard Bogart and Judith Dolnick, among others. In 1957, Natkin married artist Judith Dolnick six weeks after they met. In 1958, Natkin had a one-man show at the Wells Street Gallery and in 1959, he moved to New York where he began exhibiting with the Poindexter Gallery. In 1960 he was included in the “Young America” exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He was appointed as Artist-in-Residence at the Kalamazoo Arts Center in 1964 and in 1969 he participated in a retrospective solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Natkin frequently used cloths and netting as stencils to achieve textures described the critic John Russell of the New York Times in 1978 as having a "worked-over look that suggests that the painting has been traversed over and over by a very small truck that has just had its tires, retreaded"
His work bears affinities both to Lyrical Abstraction and to Tachisme artists such as Nicolas de Staël, Serge Poliakoff, Andre Lanskoy, Hans Hartung, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Gustave Singier, Alfred Manessier, Roger Bissiere, Lyrical Abstraction arose in the 1960s and 70s, following the challenge of Minimalism and Conceptual art. Many artists began moving away from geometric, hard-edge, and minimal styles, toward more lyrical, sensuous, romantic abstractions worked in a loose gestural style. These "lyrical abstractionists" sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting, and to revive and reinvigorate a painterly 'tradition' in American art. At the same time, these artists sought to reinstate the primacy of line and color as formal elements in works composed according to aesthetic principles – rather than as the visual representation of sociopolitical realities or philosophical theories." "Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly techniques, the abstract works included in this exhibition sing with rich fluid color and quiet energy. Artists associated with Lyrical Abstraction include: Natvar Bhavsar, Lamar Briggs, Friedel Dzubas, Sam Francis, Ronnie Landfield, Pat Lipsky, Joan Mitchell, Robert Natkin, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, Garry Rich, Larry Zox, Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. Screenprint, His paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
The Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut
Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts See less