Painter, illustrator, and graphic artist Paul Rotterdam (b. 1939) is the Austrian member of the New York School, a group of artists whose radical approaches pushed pure abstraction to its very limits. In the late 1960s, Rotterdam moved to the United States to acquaint himself with the theory behind these approaches and to practically apply them to his own works.

Rotterdam is resolute in seeking out expressions of the universal. He proceeds from the theories of classical modernism, ranging from the postulate of free form, by the likes of Kandinsky, to the constraint of forms by Piet Mondrian. His paintings achieve a material quality that generates its own reality. Paul Rotterdam: Nightbow and other events offers a portrayal of an artist whose thoughts and austere paintings enable us to experience the intrinsic.