Natalie Forman passed away on Wednesday, October 26, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a long illness. Born Natalie Berg in Chicago on May 20, 1926, Natalie painted and took classes as a young woman at the Art Institute of Chicago, where her teachers and mentors included the artists Kathleen Blackshear and Ethel Spears. In addition to her passion for art, Mrs. Forman was a committed political activist, learning to champion civil rights and civil liberties under Saul Alinsky in Chicago in the 1940s.

In 1946 she met Dr. Irving Forman (1921–2009), to whom she was married for sixty-three years, sharing a lifetime of love and passionate interests. Before relocating to Santa Fe in 1985, the couple lived in their native Chicago for thirty-nine years. Over time, the Formans became interested in non-objective art and, around 1960, became patrons of minimalist, conceptual artists. During the 1960’s through the 1980’s, Natalie pursued her passion for improving social conditions in two ways: she founded and implemented the Uptown People’s Federal Credit Union (now the North Side Community Credit Union), providing access to financial opportunities for residents of Chicago’s low-income Uptown neighborhood, and she was instrumental in establishing the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Both institutions continue to thrive today.

In 2003, the Forman’s donated their impressive collection of minimalist art to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. The Natalie and Irving Forman Collection at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery became the largest single donation of artworks in the museum’s history and includes works by Josef Albers, Burgoyne Diller, Leon Polk Smith, Florence Pierce and Frank Stella. They also made the equally noteworthy gift of their art-related papers and original artists’ correspondence to that museum’s library, making the Albright-Knox one of the most important repositories of monochromatic art in the country.

Natalie Forman is survived by her two daughters, Lisa Forman Neall (George Neall) of Virginia and Gabrielle Forman of California and her grandson, Louis Alec Rezanka. In lieu of flowers, her family requests that those so moved make a donation to their favorite charity in honor of their mother and grandmother.

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Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Contemporary American and European Art