BackgroundAdolph Gottlieb was born in New York City on March 14, 1903. After growing up during the Depression and the inter-war period, Gottlieb defended the ability of abstract expressionism to express emotions and complex feelings during these difficult times especially after World War II. In high school, Gottlieb began to take weekend art classes and in 1919, dropped out of school to become an artist. Some of Gottlieb’s first teachers include Robert Henri and John Sloane, influential artists of their time. In 1921 in order to pay his passage to go to Paris to study, he worked on a steamer boat on the way over. When there, he visited the Louvre everyday and attended free classes at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. He continued to travel across Europe until returning to New York in 1922. He finished his studies at Parsons and Cooper Union. In 1932 he married Esther Dick and in 1935, Gottlieb and Rothko were founding members of The Ten, a group protesting American realism. In 1943, Rothko and him wrote a letter to the New York Times stating the principles of Abstract Expressionism. He talked at the Museum of Modern Art and the Artists Student League. He along with fourteen other painters of the New York School protested the Metropolitan Museums focus on realism in a juried selection and had a photo take of them, labeled the “Irascibles.” He later taught at the Pratt Institute and the University of California. He was featured in many international exhibitions and at the Guggenheim and Whitney. Gottlieb’s work focused on universal symbols and drawing images from many sources expecting the viewer to connect with an idea already inside of them. This can be seen in his early exhibition Pictographs. Later, he became more abstract, still focusing on universal meaning, and how to express how complex life is using the simplest means questioning the relationship between color and space using often oil on canvas. Questions/further resourcesIn order to answer some of the questions you may want to read this to analyze specific pieces and above is a video that acts as a slideshow with Gottlieb's pieces (just for fun)
Sources: https://www.theartstory.org/artist-gottlieb-adolph-artworks.htm#pnt_5 https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/adolph-gottlieb http://www.artnet.com/artists/adolph-gottlieb/
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June 2021
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