Robert Natkin

(Chicago, Illinois, 1930 - 2010, Danbury, Connecticut)

North America, American

An abstract painter known for combining fields of color with playful geometric forms, Robert Natkin advised viewers to lick his paintings “with the tongue of their eye.” Raised in an extended Russian-Jewish emigrant family, as a child Natkin went to the movies up to six times a week, nurturing what became a life-long interest in pop culture. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1952 and moved to New York in 1959. The San Francisco Museum of Art mounted a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1969. He relocated his family to rural Connecticut in 1970, where the artist lived until his death. Natkin’s work is represented in collections across the country, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

View objects by this artist.