George Allen Nama, an artist whose work is included in the collections of such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Morgan Library, died on Oct. 22 in New York City. He was 86.
Mr. Nama, who lived in Montauk, worked across a variety of mediums, primarily printmaking but also sculpture, drawing, and painting.
The son of Anne and George Donald Nama, he was born on Feb. 23, 1939, in Homestead, Pa., across the river from Pittsburgh. The city had "an intensely creative moment" in the early 1950s, a biography on his website says, with a "vibrant jazz scene and the Carnegie International exhibitions" of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art. "Nama was a keen observer of this stimulating environment, as one can see in his evocative cityscapes."
He earned a bachelor's degree and an M.F.A. at Carnegie Mellon University. In the 1960s, Mr. Nama worked at the master printer William Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17 studio in Paris, frequented by some of the best-known international artists of the era, among them Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, and Alberto Giacometti.
"Already involved with poets and writers since the early 1960s, Nama collaborated in 1976 with his friend, the French poet and art historian Yves Bonnefoy, on artist's books," according to his website. This led to a series of books and exhibitions with Alfred Brendel, a classical pianist and poet, and the poet Charles Simic, who was poetry co-editor of The Paris Review.
"It has always been an interest and passion of mine to work in concert with other artists of different disciplines. I love the idea of working with the spatial dynamics of dancing, the sound and syncopation of music, and the vast world of the 'word' and all of its variations of form and meaning. It's like discovering a treasure trove of inspiration and imagery," Mr. Nama wrote in the artist's statement on his website.
Mr. Nama was elected to the National Academy of Design in New York in 1981. There and at the School of Visual Arts, he taught draftsmanship and printmaking "while continuing to develop his own abstract take on natural forms," his biography says. His work was exhibited in solo shows around the country and in Europe and was included in group shows around the world.
He had been friends since high school with the late director George A. Romero, whose "Night of the Living Dead" is credited as the seminal film in what would become a wildly popular zombie genre. In 2017, the two collaborated on "Liberator," a short story by Mr. Romero with etchings by Mr. Nama.
Mr. Nama is survived by his partner of 20 years, Christine F. Romero, and her daughter, Tina Romero of New York City.
He was buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk. A memorial is to be held in November at a date and time to be determined.
