Charles Kolnik achieved an artistic maturity with roots in his lifelong admiration and study of the particular works of Titian, Rembrandt, George Inness, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Jean-Baptiste Camille Carot, Turner and Constable.
He was influenced as well by his general appreciation of the Barbison and Hudson River schools. He achieved a style identifiably his own. He painted mostly in oils, but over the past two decades he also worked in watercolor and egg tempera. His paintings enjoy a quality and depth which evoke unfolding layers of imagery and atmosphere appreciated in any lighting. As described in a news review of a gallery twenty-five year retrospective, Kolnik’s works are “rich, evocative oil paintings that seem to unveil themselves to you as you look at them."
Charles had the unique experience of having one of his paintings inspire a ballet. He was honored and awestruck when he was notified that a painting that he had created of angels, which had turned up at a New York City flea market, inspired: Les Jeux Des Anges (The Angel Games), choreographed by Virginie Mecene and performed by the Martha Graham Ensemble at Theresa Lang Theatre in New York City.
Charles Kolnik’s paintings won awards whenever competitively exhibited. They have been sold by galleries in Boston, New York, Cape Cod and the Hamptons and were shown as part of a resident artist display at the Guggenheim in New York City. Charles’ artistic mission was to express, or, as he insisted, “try” to express the natural world as he saw it, which, he recognized, is itself “perfect.”