Katie Nartonis

Katie Nartonis is the founder of The Nartonis Project and a writer, curator, filmmaker, and 20th century art + design specialist. With over 20 years experience in the high-end art + design field, Nartonis is also an independent art and design specialist assisting clients by helping to bring their fine objects to sale at auction or for private sale. She currently serves as Gallery Director of the HDA: Hi Desert Artists Art Center in Yucca Valley, California.

Before she moved to the high desert of California, Nartonis was Director of CONVERSO gallery in Hollywood and previous to that Consignment Director, 20th Century Design at HERITAGE Auctions in Beverly Hills and Dallas. Nartonis worked in the BONHAMS’ 20th Century Decorative Art Department for over a decade, where she helped to execute auctions in both Los Angeles and New York. While at Bonhams, she created the popular Bonham’s Design Lecture series which featured luminaries such as Sam Maloof, Larry Bell and the creative team behind the Sci-Fi classic, “BladeRunner: Designing the Future.” She started her career in auction working as the assistant to the late Peter Loughrey at LAMA (Los Angeles Modern Auctions.)

Her first career was in film and television where she produced award winning content including collaborating on the Oscar winning film, “The Accountant” in 2000. She won a Humanitas Award for Co-Producing “The Sissy Duckling” (featuring Harvey Fierstein + Sharon Stone) for HBO in 1999. She served as President of Women in Animation, and as the youngest woman to serve on the Animation Peer Group for the Television Academy of Arts + Sciences where she helped determine who won the Emmy Awards in her field. From 2017-2025, she served on the Board of Directors for the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts. During her tenure at the Maloof she was elected as President of the Board, where she worked with the board and staff to build strong exhibition, education, restoration, and fundraising programs to the Maloof campus.

In 2015, Nartonis co-curated an exhibition (with design specialist Gerard O’Brien) on the counter-culture feather artist, Nicki Marx - called “Marx Rising” at Reform Gallery in Los Angeles. In the Spring of 2018, Nartonis curated “Nature: Human Nature” at the Loft at Liz’s Gallery in Hollywood which features the work over a dozen artists and makers including Charles Hollis Jones, Garry Knox Bennett, Pamela Weir-Quiton and The Sam Maloof Studio. In 2022 Nartonis curated “The Minds’ Eye” for JTAG Gallery which featured the historic 1930’s transcendental religious paintings of Edith Valentine Tenbrink. In February 2023 she curated the exhibit “Edwin + Lloyd” for the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, which told the story of the founder of Mentalphysics Edwin Dingle and the architect Lloyd Wright (Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr.) and co-authored a book of the same name. In 2020, Nartonis co-authored “Jack Rogers Hopkins: California Design Maverick”- on mid-century San Diego maker Jack Rogers Hopkins, and curated an exhibit of his work at the Maloof Foundation in 2024. Her most recent exhibition, “HANDWORK: Crafting the Counterculture” featuring the early work Garry Knox Bennett and Nicki Marx was open at the Maloof Foundation in 2025. The show will travel to the HDA: Hi Desert Artists Art Center in the Summer of 2025.

Her other books, “Glimpses of the Joshua Tree Dream (with Lisa Schyck) and “California Desert Artists” Volumes 1 + 2 were published in 2024 and 2025 respectively. As a journalist she has written about culture, design, art and architecture for the Joshua Tree Voice, Desert and SoCal Magazines.

The Nartonis Project is dedicated to telling well-crafted stories about the West Coast art scene. Through multiple platforms such as film, curated gallery shows, lecture, and pop-up events we intend to be a rich resource on the history of California Design, and its central artistic figures, both past and present. We are committed to telling the story of the work and life of those artists, thinkers, and makers who have created the post-war scene or are part of it now. In a world yearning for a connection to ideas and objects of substance, our goal is to provide that bridge.