Adolph Gottlieb 1956

Offering a rare look at Adolph Gottlieb’s progress as he moved from one major phase of his career to another, this fully illustrated catalogue highlights the work of one of the seminal figures of abstract expressionism.
Celebrating one of the most successful and influential artists of his generation, this catalog presents the incredible variety and energy of Gottlieb’s work during the pivotal year of 1956. Gottlieb’s career spans more than fifty years, longer than most of his colleagues. His pictographs of the early 1940s were among the first coherent body of paintings that departed from European modernism. He was also one of the earliest of his generation to rethink the direction of his art and to start fresh with his Imaginary Landscape and Unstill Life paintings of the late 1940s and early 1950s. These evolved into Gottlieb’s most popular Burst images, developed in 1956.

The works collected in this catalog show the rich diversity and vitality of Gottlieb’s painting. They provide an unusual look at this artist and at the shift in direction that American abstract painting was about to make. With an essay by Sanford Hirsch, executive director of the Gottlieb Foundation, this striking collection offers a unique and perceptive view of one of the seminal figures of abstract expressionism.

Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) was born in New York City. He studied under John Sloan and Robert Henri. In the 1940s, he created pictographs that were stylized, primitive symbols set in a grid-like pattern. His abstract, dynamic canvases of the next decade (e.g., Frozen Sounds, Number One, 1951) placed him in the front ranks of abstract expressionism.