The American artist Robert AMFT is alive today. At 95, he produces oils, acrylics, watercolors. For AMFT, a life without making art is unthinkable. In 1939, he graduated from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. AMFT freelanced in the field of applied art since his early 20s. This job provided the financial stability essential for his long-lasting career, enabled him to create top-grade art, to experiment with forms, media and techniques, to freely develop his identity as an artist, to constantly refine his work, unchained from the dictate of public taste. AMFT never attended to the demands of the art market, never followed circles, or joined groups, never copied mainstream styles or regional looks, he stands alone. AMFT’s work strong, direct, competent and meaningful, is made on the spur of the moment, from inspiration and wit, from his resourceful genius, fabricated for his own delight, not to please everybody, but for everyone to see. His trademark: humor and irony. His paintings from the early 40s look like they have just been taken down from the easel today. In the 50s and 60s he worked with stencils and commercial spray paint on canvas, decades before graffiti became an artform. It is safe to say, that AMFT is among the first artists worldwide to paint with spray paint on canvas, performed at the time when critics determined that “fine art” cannot be made with commercial spray paint. In the 70s, AMFT painted large scale portraits which became prevalent in the 80s. “Amft had already done in the 40s what Roger Brown and Philip Guston developed later. Today, Amft is finally getting the recognition he has long deserved.” wrote critic Paul Klein in 2006. It is virtually impossible to categorize AMFT’s complex work: from abstract to figurative; from outsider/naive to sophisticated/classic; from appropriations/collages to creative oils/watercolors/ acrylics; from brushstrokes to commercial spray paint; from stencils to free flowing compositions. In 2011, AMFT moved from Chicago to Myrtle Beach, SC.
