Wednesday, October 22, 2008

MoMa: abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb

Adolph Gottlieb had a vast influence on the work of Louisiana artist Clyde Connell.

Here are notes on Gottlieb, one of the original NYC abstract expressionists, from Wikipedia:

Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 - March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter and sculptor.

He was born in New York. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year. Before his skills had fully developed he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. When he returned, he was one of the most traveled New York Artists. In the mid-1930’s, he became a teacher using his acquired technical and art history knowledge to teach while he painted.

During World War II, Gottlieb encountered exiled Surrealists in New York and they added to and reaffirmed his belief in the subconscious as the well for evocative and universal art. This belief led him to experiment with basic and elemental symbols. The results of his experiments manifested themselves in his series “Pictographs” which spanned from 1941-1950.

He is considered one of the first color field painters and is one of the forerunners of Lyrical Abstraction.

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