Nat Mayer Shapiro: Joy and Rigor

From optical illusions to genre scenes and dancing kites, Shapiro's protean output defies categorization

From the 1950s until his death in 2005, Nat Mayer Shapiro created over 900 paintings, drawings, assemblages and sculptures. Though he drew from modernist movements such as Expressionism, Op art and pure abstraction, his work features Biblical vignettes, dancing kites, anthropomorphic sculptures and views into the fathomless cosmos.