Nicholas Krushenick (1929-1999) was an American abstract painter whose unique aesthetic fused Pop Art, Minimalism with a touch of Op Art.

Native to New York, Krushenick’s career began in the late 1950s. He would become known for his stylistic synthesis: incorporating the spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionists with the flat planes and animated style of Pop Art.

Along with his brother John, Nicholas founded the artist cooperative, ‘Brata Gallery’ in 1957, one of the famous 10th Street galleries in New York. These modest, artist-run spaces rejected the established uptown gallerists that governed the industry. Young artists showing at Brata, notably Yayoi Kusama, Al Held, and Ed Clark, favored bold colors and an optimistic ambience and often used pop culture graphics or elements from daily life

Krushenick’s signature style developed in the 1960s. Inspired by an exhibition of Henri Matisse’s late cut-paper works, Krushenick favored bright color blocks and employed black outlines. By the late 1960s, his style evolved, where the painting’s edges would often be framed, enclosing the composition.

Such compositional confinement is exhibited in "Tail Gate", where Krushenick encloses a blue field of color with his characteristic black-outlined pink and yellow rectangles on the left and top-left of the work. Described in Artforum as the missing link between Hard Edge Abstraction and Pop Art, Krushenick’s swaths of bright color, illustrative lines, and abstract forms, still place him as an important figure in the Pop Art movement.

In 1964, Krushenick was included in the legendary exhibition, Post-Painterly Abstraction, organized by Clement Greenberg at the Los Angeles Country Art Museum. Since then, Krushenick’s works have held a solid position in the American modern art canon as a connector of contrasting modernist styles. His work continues to influence contemporary artists such as Carroll Dunham and Julia Dault.

Krushenick’s works can be found in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Art Gallery of Ontario, Albright-Knox Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.