Judy Dolnick:Abstractions

While Judy Dolnick emerged from the sphere of American Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s, her works are distinct from those of her peers. Rhythm and gesture play a critical role in the process of her work. Set against earthy grounds, swathes of colour pattern her canvases in cadenced and rigorous compositions. The resultant works are expressive and lyrical, essential and enduring.

Judy Dolnick was born in Chicago in 1934. She studied at Stanford University, graduating in 1955, before attending The Illinois Institute of Technology, from which she graduated in 1957.  Dolnick co-founded the Wells Street Gallery, with her husband Robert Natkin, and fellow artists Gerald van de Wiele and Ann Mattingly. The gallery became  a crucible for experimentation that brought together artists including Aaron Siskind and John Chamberlain. In 1959, she was included in a group exhibition named Artists of Chicago and Vicinity: 62nd Annual Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. She moved to New York in the same year and held her first solo-exhibition at the Poindexter Gallery soon after. Since then, her work has been exhibited in the USA and internationally. Her work is held at institutional collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC., The Mint Museum of Art, Mint, Charlotte, The Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State University, and The Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas.