Cadaqués (behind the scenes)
Norman Narotzky
The picturesque Catalonia town of Cadaqués is famous for being the one-time haven for painters such as Salvatore Dali (perhaps its most famous visitor), Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Joan Miró. Spanish author Federico García Lorca also spent time there. Today it remains one of those popular destinations that still manages to (barely) feel like a secret, especially outside of prime summer months.
Norman Narotzky and his wife, Mercedes Molleda, in his studio in Cadaqués with his painting “Geronimo” in June, 2023.
Up a series of steep, cobblestoned streets, away from the gelato shops and tony seafood restaurants, is the summer home and studio of painter Norman Narotzky. Born in 1928 in Brooklyn and living in Spain since 1958, the 96-year-old still descends the steep circular staircase every day to work on new canvases. (Mr. Narotzky’s work has been exhibited around the world and is in the permanent collections of institutions including MoMA and dozens of other galleries.)
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.
One of his pieces, portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, were banned by the Franco government and this incident was covered in the international press. The Spanish government published anti-Semitic things about him after he showed the Ferdinand and Isabella paintings. Somehow he endured (partially because he has a Spanish wife, he says.) He's a delightful man, and I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with him and see paintings—both finished and in progress—in his studio, and to have tea with him and his wife as they recounted their stories one hot summer afternoon.
Norman Narotzky’s "Reyes Católicos”, the ones that caused all the problems.
Some additional background from Wikipedia:
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. He was assigned to the Graphic Arts Section of the Medical Field Service School, in Texas, where he made illustrations. At the end of his service, in 1954, he won a Woolley Foundation Grant to study art in Paris where he worked at Atelier 17, a renowned printmaking space.
He spent the summer of 1955 painting in the village of Cadaqués in Spain and then continued his stay in Paris for a second year with a French government Fellowship. 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.
New York Times re Reyes Católicos
New Pressure on the New Spanish Painting (June 11, 1967). The New York Times. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/06/11/83606141.html?pageNumber=145
Protest from Spain (September 17, 1967). The New York Times.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/09/17/121510508.html?pageNumber=217
Narotzky’s MoMA page
https://www.moma.org/artists/64552
Additional articles about Narotzky (in Spanish)
El Mundo Deportivo. November 4, 1966.
Que Pasa-Madrid. Date unknown.
La Vanguardia. February 4, 1966.
