Robert Nickle (1919, Saginaw, Michigan - 1980)

He was a 20th-century American artist known primarily for his "street scrap" collage work.

In 1943 he graduated from the University of Michigan where he studied architecture and design. Nickle came to Chicago to study with László Moholy-Nagy at the Institute of Design (ID). As he trained in graphic design, he began to make collages; his artwork was shown publicly as early as 1947, when one of his collages was included in the New Realities show in Paris. After he finished his studies at ID, Nickle accepted a teaching position in design there from 1949 to 1952. He subsequently took a job at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Nickle exhibited extensively during his career. He had one-person shows at AIX (1978); Cranbrook Academy Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1979); and UIC's Gallery 400 (1994); and numerous solo shows at his long-time gallery, Richard Gray, Chicago, and at the Acquavella Contemporary Art Gallery in New York. He participated in the Museum of Modern Art's Assemblage (1961) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's Abstract Art in Chicago (1976).

His work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, David and Alfred Smart Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Indianapolis Museum, Smithsonian Museum, Carnegie Institute Museum and the National Gallery in Washington.

Sources include:
wikipedia.org
gallery400.uic.edu/