128
PART ISAN R. EV IEW
alld
Spectres
at Mi chae l R osenfeld, sin ce neith er pa inter's wo rk has been seen
with any frequency in th e pas t few yea rs. Natkin's dreamy, quirky pi ctures
rang changes on hi s habitual cas t of charac ters: the blunted rec tangl es, thi ck–
ened letter- like shapes, and soft-edged fo rms that fl oat and j os tl e one
another in the fli ckering, do tted atmosph ere o f hi s canvases . K1 ee and th e
movies info rm th ese paintings almos t equall y. N atkin di stills from one a
sense of materi al expressiveness and from th e o th er, an illusion of instabili–
ty and pulsin g mo ti on . I've thought fo r some time that he's bes t when he
simplifies and scales up hi s dappl ed marks so that th ey read as pi ctorial
events, not just as texture or pattern , and two o f the stro nges t wo rks in the
show , a large, tawny brown canvas and a creamy pi cture that seemed to bl ow
a stack of H o fi11 ann - like rectangles into mid-air, confirmed m y impression.
I was less taken w ith an ambi ti ous seri es of small Stati ons of the C ross, since
the spec ifi cs of the narrative turn ed Natkin's lively shapes into cartoon - like
characters-an o utlin ed cruciform , capabl e of bend ing like a naturali sti cal–
ly rendered fi gure, was fl agellated, crowned w ith tho rns and all th e res t of
it. But w hateve r my reservati ons about indi vidual works, N atkin's w it and
hi s mas terly ability to turn paint into something luminous and intensel y
pl easurabl e to contemplate reverberated thro ugh th e show.
There have been promi ses of a full-scale 130b Thompson retrospective
for some years, tantali zing those of us who have long been interes ted in th e
work o f thi s prodi giously talented, sel f-des tru cti ve, all- too-short-lived
Afri can- Ameri can painter. Apparently we do n' t have much lo nge r to wait,
but in the meantime, the survey at Mi chael R.osenfeld was a welcome
oppo rtuni ty to see some impo rtant pi ctures, alo ng w ith more modes t works
that documented Thompson's evo luti on-not that he had all that long to
evolve, sin ce he di ed in R ome in 1966, just short of hi s 29th birthday; hi s
career as a full- time painter spanned a mere eight years.
But as th e recent show made cl ear, Th ompson was a natural sto rytell er
who qui ckl y fo und hi s vo ice, rapidly devel oping a language of brilliant, sat–
urated hues, thi ck stro kes, and blocky structures, and marshalling a cas t o f
schemati c characters , bo th human and fantas ti c, to enac t hi s private dramas .
There are echoes o f German Expressi oni s;n throughout Thompson's wo rk
and even stronger echoes of a German-bo rn painter cl oser to hi s own gen–
eration , the vi sio nary Jan Mi.ill er. Yet whatever its relati o n to its antecedents,
a pi cture like
The Tree,
1962, w ith its gutsy silho uettes, its Mati ssean play of
a flat red shape aga inst all expanse of blac k loosely bru shed over red, and its
fl attened fi gures, un cons train ed by gravity, is a pretty remarkabl e ac hi eve–
ment for a twe nty- fi ve yea r o ld .
Thompson's bes t works marry firm abstrac t stru cture to haunting, o th–
erworldl y image ry almos t drown ed by j ui cy paint; hi s wea kest are hi s mos t
Ii
tera!' Like many Ameri can painters in Europe fo r th e first time, he was hi t
