Filled with diminutive patterns of shapes and colors, Nozkowski’s small-scale paintings reflect the artist’s own brilliant and changing world

Thomas Nozkowski (1944–2019) developed a singular approach to painting that rejected established aesthetic conventions. Most notably, he spurned the oversized canvases favored by the Abstract Expressionists and Minimalists and instead painted on 16-by-20-inch boards purchased from a local art store. Everything in the World centers on a formative period of the artist’s career during which he set out specific aesthetic terms for his practice. The 1970s and 1980s saw major changes in Nozkowski’s personal life, including the birth of his son and the purchase of his first property in New York’s Hudson Valley—a place that would become an enduring inspiration for his work. Zeroing in on these two decades, this publication presents the artist’s signature, intimately scaled compositions alongside three painted wood sculptures and several large-scale painting that have not been publicly exhibited in decades.

Text by: Martin Clark, Oliver Shultz