Page 78 - Studio International - April 1968

the Whitney took up from there to the present.
I am not objecting to the starting point of the
exhibition. I have never insisted on the public
exhibition of the fumbling pre-history of an artist's
style. But it does seem strange, given the double
effort by two museums, that the paintings through
which Gottlieb gathered his wits for the big
renunciation in 1941 found no place. These omis-
sions distort the developmental nature of the show,
since as Diane Waldman remarks far too briefly in
her text, Gottlieb had been 'arranging seashells,
starfish and coral in three-dimensional boxes set
against deeply receding and ultimately irrational
spaces' shortly before he commenced his long series
of compartmented 'pictographs'. The sea paintings,
which might have been their origin, belong in an
exhibition which is otherwise chronological and
dealt with in the meticulous art historical terms
now prevalent in all museum documentary
exhibitions.
If the paintings of the 1930s had to be omitted, at Mary Frank Tidal vision plaster, Zabriskie Gallery, New York
least some consideration of the background for the
work of the '40s ought to have appeared in the text.
For instance, there is an all too fleeting reference to
The Ten, an informal group which met, argued Gottlieb retained the basic shapes that filled out his abstraction: the profound and effective sublima-
and exhibited together during the late 1930s. This pictographs. Once again, as becomes clear in the tion of subject beneath the skin of the abstract
group included Ilya Bolotowsky, Lee Gatch, Ben Whitney, he established a motif, and worked up painting. Gottlieb, in these terms, falls short. He
Zion, Earl Kerkham, and, most relevant to the his pictures, interchanging parts, altering colour, never regarded the subject as more than a pretext
Gottlieb exhibition, Mark Rothko. but always hovering around a few readable motifs. for picture making.
From what I can gather, these artists were already Along with his fellow Abstract Expressionists, The subject remains, but on the surface, simply
well informed about continental Surrealism and Gottlieb sought simplicity in very large formats, stated and often coldly stated. He is undeniably
sought, in their discussions, to focus their own but unlike them, he avoided hermetic meanings, a skilful, often delicate painter, but the kind of
impatience with social realism through the ideas and the kind of spontaneous shock by which they wrenching intensity one feels in a Pollock or
and even the techniques of the Surrealists. Auto- sought their identity. When he painted Burst in Rothko is rarely present in Gottlieb. He is the
matic writing, for instance, was not only discussed, 1957, with its haloed red sun and its earth mass Veronese of the movement.
but also practised by several of these artists, includ- below, he found his lode for the next few years,
ing Rothko and Gottlieb. They probably arrived at during which he repeated the motif in many Concurrent with the Gottlieb exhibition at the
their preoccupation with myth, above all the Oedi- variations, rarely offering more than a satisfying GUGGENHEIM was an absolutely superb show of
pus myth, via their acquaintance with the myth- juxtaposition of colour and a clear exposition of Neo-Impressionist painting organized by Professor
making of the Surrealists. And this happened well the motif. The sublimation of meanings that en- Robert L. Herbert of Yale University. Not only
before the arrival of the guru, Andre Breton. To hanced the work of many Abstract Expressionists did it include the marvellous—for instance, Seurat's
fully appreciate Gottlieb's arrival into the mythical was never for Gottlieb. Whether he calls his Parade which Prof. Herbert discusses brilliantly in
arena, it would have been better to linger just a paintings evil omens, apparitions, sorceresses or his text—but it also included the very good, and
little in the seemingly tabu period of the middle oracles, or whether he calls them burst or blast, the merely interesting aspects of the movement.
1930s. And it would have been wise to take into they are illustrations of a few rather simple ideas. Signac's concern with social commentary, Van de
account the painting culture which fed into his own When the time comes for a cool assessment of the Velde's incipient genius as an architect, Toorop's
and others' primitivistic imagery— a culture that entire movement, which I'm sure will be deferred surprisingly sound compositions that without ques-
embraces Paul Klee, André Masson, Joan Miró, for many years to come, it will be recognized that it tion launched Mondrian on the right road, are
Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Picasso, and quite a few is not the expressionism in Abstract Expressionism among the many aspects Prof. Herbert so skilfully
others. that made the movement singular, but rather the brought out in this show.
Gottlieb's decision to paint pictographs grew out
of this culture just as much as it grew out of the
local group's interest in indigenous Indian art. It
was a decision to abandon the figure in favour of
Philip McCracken Healed up sky 1967 46¼ x 78½ x 14½ in. Willard Gallery, New York
its parts symbolically rendered; to abandon deep
spatial illusion in favour of flat, compartmented
spaces, randomly composed; and to abandon the
pursuit of either pathos or direct sentiment of the
earlier work. Rothko and Gottlieb, Still and Pol-
lock, and a number of others had, at a certain brief
point, an almost programmatic approach to their
great renunciatory adventure.
Myths, as they were so fervently discussed for a
short time, were a kind of salvation. They were the
instruments by which the break with the habits of
the 1930s could be effected, and they gave a
gravity and depth to the endeavour which should
not be underestimated. Yet, where Pollock and
Rothko eventually interiorized the myths, and
sought only to keep the high tone and emotion they
engendered, Gottlieb was more interested in the
conventions they offered for making pictures. An
eye, an arrow or an egg became a motif with which
he could fill up his compartments in a more or less
interesting way. Many of Gottlieb's early paintings
are scored with these motifs used in an ornamental
rather than emotive manner. When he came to
simplify later, omitting the compartment scheme,
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