Samuel Butnik graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art and pursued his artistic career in many places, living in Taos, New Mexico, New York City, France, Greece, Spain, England and Providence, Rhode Island. Butnik’s geometric, abstract works progressed from a more “soft abstraction” in the early 1960s to “hard edge” paintings in the late 1960s and 1970s. In the eighties, Butnik explored more minimal landscapes. Later, Butnik created “jackstraw” paintings in which he put down colors and lines in reciprocal arrangements that created a composition with lively movement and fictious depth.

Butnik’s work can be found in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Akron Art Museum, Providence College, Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Missouri.