Judith Dolnick

Born in Chicago, painter Judy Dolnick has been creating colorful and vivid abstract paintings since the 1950s. She received her BA from Stanford University in 1955 and attended The Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, in 1957. Along with her husband, the painter Robert Natkin, and fellow artists Gerald van de Wiele and Ann Mattingly, Dolnick opened the Wells Street Gallery in Chicago to address the lack of exhibition opportunities for abstract expressionists in the area. Among the many artists successfully shown at Wells Street Gallery were the photographer Aaron Siskind and the sculptor John Chamberlain.

In 1959, Dolnick and Natkin moved to New York City. In the late 1960s, she exhibited at the Poindexter Gallery, followed by exhibitions at Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer, Outlet Gallery, and the Edward Hopper House Museum. Dolnick’s work is part of many permanent collections, including The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Spencer Museum of Art, The Mint Museum of Art, and The Palmer Museum of Art.

Dolnick’s art is influenced by various movements ranging from expressionism to abstraction. Her paintings pay homage to other masters, such as Van Gogh, Gauguin, Redon, Kandinsky and Guston. Dolnick’s works have energy and depth; they are odes to nature and space, expressed through light (color) and brought home by the rhythm of her brushwork. Rhythm and gesture play a critical role in her artistic process, which she has continued to develop for several decades. Her aesthetic accomplishments include a vision in which her forms are solid and significant yet detached from the weight of gravity.

Entering her ninth decade of life, Dolnick continues to paint almost daily in her Connecticut and New York studios, creating works in a light and flower-filled room. Findlay Galleries is honored to represent the artist exclusively, presenting works in varying media, from acrylic on canvas to watercolor on paper, highlighting the depth and richness of Dolnick’s oeuvre.

“I love the great art of the past and present. Painting has always been a most significant part of my life. I want my work to have an unabashed sensual beauty as well as a rigorous plastic order. I hope my work conveys a MAGIC—that which makes art alive—beyond its immediate attractiveness.”