Norman Narotzky

Norman Narotzky (born 1928, Brooklyn, New York City) is an American and Spanish artist living in Barcelona, Spain. His work addresses social issues and the style varies from abstractionism to figurative painting and transitional styles.

Biography and work

Narotzky's father, Harry Aaron Narotzky migrated to the US from the village of Kabylnik (now Narach, Belarus) in 1907. Almost all family remaining in Kabylnik perished during WWII, massacred by the Nazi. Narotzky's mother was an immigrant from Ukraine and worked as a seamstress.

At the age of thirteen, Narotzky was accepted into the High School of Music and Art in New York City from which he graduated in 1945. During this time, he studied on weekends in the studio of Moses Soyer, together with a group of classmates: Harvey Dinnerstein, Burton Silverman, Murray Stern and Herbert Steinberg. He continued his art education at Brooklyn College, where one of his professors was Ad Reinhardt, receiving his BA in 1949. At the same time, he attended the Art Students League of New York. Subsequently, he began working at a Graphic Design Studio and studying at the Cooper Union Art School.

In 1953, Narotzky was drafted into the US Army. In 1956 a Fulbright Program Fellowship brought him to the Academy of Fine Arts, in Munich. In 1957, he returned to New York City to paint and study art history at the New York City Graduate School. In 1958 Narotzky moved to Barcelona. When news of this reached the authorities in Madrid, it created an uproar in the Franco government, which considered it to be a direct attack on its ideology.

In the 1970s, Narotzky created a series of paintings entitled "Images of Life and Death", provoked by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the anti-war protests. The images denounce violence and destruction and celebrate the hope for life and love. Following this, in the 1980s he returned to nature for inspiration. "Living Landscapes" portray the Catalan mountains and coastal landscapes as potent living forms. He continued this search by painting the cityscapes of Barcelona and New York, focusing on the anthropomorphic architectural details which are frequently overlooked by the passers-by. In the series "Chimeneas de l’Empordà" he focused on the expressive "physiognomy" of chimneys in the old buildings of the region.

In 2014, Narotzky began his latest series of paintings, "Ocaso" ("sunset" in Spanish). It also means decadence, decline, end and death. It is a figurative warning to humanity about the fragility of existence and the threat of self-destruction through wars, terrorism and the continuing damage to the earth and the environment.

Narotzky has had over 60 solo shows and numerous group exhibitions. His works are included, among others, in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Mills College Art Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Stavanger Museum in Norway, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía ("Queen Sofia National Museum Art Centre") in Madrid, the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the James A. Michener Collection in the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas.

Family

Narotzky's wife Mercedes Molleda is a retired geography and history professor and an art critic. The couple has two daughters and two grandsons.

External images Participation in an exhibition in Museum of Modern Art, New York.