Abraham Palatnik (1928, Natal, Brazil—2020, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a central figure in the development of kinetic and optical art in Brazil. A painter, kinetic artist, and draftsman, he joined the Grupo Frente in 1954 alongside figures such as Ivan Serpa, Ferreira Gullar, Mário Pedrosa, Franz Weissmann, and Lygia Clark. Trained in engineering, Palatnik pursued technical investigations centered on experimentation with movement and light, developing works based on visual phenomena that would define his practice over the course of seven decades.

Palatnik participated in several editions of the São Paulo Biennial, Brasil (1951, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1965, 1967, 1969), as well as the 32nd Venice Biennale, Italy (1964). His retrospective The Reinvention of Painting was presented at institutions including the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte; the Fundação Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre; the Museu Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiba; and MAM–São Paulo (2011–2013). Notable group exhibitions include Sur moderno, MoMA, New York (2019); The Other Trans-Atlantic: Kinetic & Op Art in Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America 1950s–1970s, presented at Sesc Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2017–2018); and Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason, The Met, New York (2018).

His works are held in major institutional collections, including MoMA, New York, USA; MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA; MAM–Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and MAM–São Paulo, Brazil.