Collection: Thomas Nozkowski

Thomas Nozkowski (March 23, 1944 – May 9, 2019) was an American painter celebrated for his inventive and intimate approach to abstraction. Over the course of more than four decades, he developed a distinctive body of small-scale paintings and drawings that challenged the prevailing trends of large, monumental works in postwar American art. His nuanced, playful, and highly personal visual language set him apart as a singular voice in contemporary painting.

Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, and raised in Dumont, Nozkowski was introduced to art by a schoolteacher aunt who gifted him and his sister art supplies. While still in high school, he won a scholarship to study at New York University’s School of Education, where he took classes with Robert Kaupelis and Hale Woodruff. He went on to earn a BFA at Cooper Union in 1967, initially working in sculpture before transitioning to painting.

In the early 1970s, Nozkowski turned away from the grandiose scale of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, choosing instead to work small—typically on 16-by-22-inch canvas boards—allowing for an intimate dialogue between artist and viewer. His work began gaining recognition in the late 1970s, with early solo exhibitions at 55 Mercer Gallery and Rosa Esman Gallery in the 1980s. In 1982, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired one of his works, marking a major milestone in his career.

Nozkowski’s career encompassed over 80 solo exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1987), the National Gallery of Canada (2009), and the Fisher Landau Center (2008). He was included in the 2007 Venice Biennale and has been represented by Pace Gallery since 2008. He was also the subject of a major retrospective of works on paper at the New York Studio School in 2003.

Working almost daily from his studio in upstate New York, Nozkowski pursued a practice grounded in curiosity, experimentation, and deeply considered mark-making. His work earned the admiration of critics such as Peter Schjeldahl, Marjorie Welish, John Yau, and Robert Storr, and remains influential to a generation of artists committed to abstraction and visual invention.