Page 40 - Studio International - May 1968

pictorial art in the near future', `confirm(s) painters like Louis and `Master' is somewhat lessened by the realization that this taste was
Noland, because, paradoxically enough, they have not been influ- `safe' to Greenberg because it was 'objective' as part of the inevitable
enced by Newman' or Rothko, and render painters following these evolution of the history of art. The point that is too often missed by
three 'as safe in their taste as they would be following De Kooning or Greenberg's readers, however, is that this art history is Greenberg's
Gorky or Kline'. version; like any avowedly subjective art criticism it can be analysed
The irony of hearing a pronouncement on 'safe' taste by a man once and evaluated in terms of its form, content, and probity.
renowned for the courage of his conviction that Pollock was a

1 Boston, Beacon Press, 1961. 7 Greenberg's debt to the teachings of Hofmann is 10 Greenberg did not like the Surrealists, who were
2 Art International, issues of October 25, 1962 and profound. He notes that Hofmann's 1938-9 public French, differently-styled Marxist, Freudian-
Summer, 1964, respectively. lectures 'were crucial' to him when he was 'just oriented, and concerned with `content'; his aver-
3 cf. Edward Lucie-Smith's introductory comments beginning to see abstract art'. (`The Late Thirties sion was so strong that he seldom mentioned their
to 'An Interview with Clement Greenberg' and in New York', Art and Culture, p. 232). See also his presence in New York in his accounts of immigrant
Patrick Heron's 'A kind of Cultural Imperialism?' essay on Hofmann as 'The Most Important artists. As Max Kozloff has noted, he refused to
in the issues of January and February 1968 Teacher of Our Time', The Nation, April 1945. use the term 'drips' when discussing Pollock's first
respectively. Hofmann's teachings are presented in his Search exhibited dripped paintings in 1949 and ignored
4 cf. Robert Goldwater, 'Art and Criticism', for the Real and other essays, Andover (Mass.), the relevance of 'automatism' to them (cf. Max
Partisan Review, vol. 28, Nos. 5-6, 1961; George Addison Gallery of American Art, 1949. Kozloff, 'The Critical Reception of Abstract
Dennison, 'The Craft-history of Modern Art', Arts Greenberg's fame as Pollock's 'discoverer' is Expressionism', Arts, December 1965).
Yearbook, No. 7, 1964; Max Kozloff, letters to the justified in terms of journalistic championing, but 11 At Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont,
Editor of Art International ( June 1963) and Artforum not in terms of living history. Pollock was 'dis- 1952.
(November 1967), and 'Problems in Criticism III : covered' by John Graham in this show: a point 12 At Bennington and Williams Colleges in 1954;
Venetian Art and Florentine Criticism', Artforum, which De Kooning recently took the trouble to in 1959 work by Gottlieb and the 'New York
December 1967. For Rosenberg's criticisms of emphasize. In an interview with James T. Valliere, School' for the Galerie Rive Droite in Paris, the
Greenberg and his followers, see below, note 20. Me Kooning on Pollock', Partisan Review, Fall I.C.A. in London, French & Co. and the Jewish
5 cf. Letters to the Editor of Artforum from Robert 1967) De Kooning discussed this exhibition and Museum in New York.
Smithson (issue of October 1967), Robert Irwin said: 'Graham was very important and he dis- 13 He wrote the preface to Newman's 'First Retro-
(February 1968), and Allan Kaprow (September covered Pollock. I make that very clear. It wasn't spective' at Bennington College in 1958; that
1967). Kaprow and Smithson criticize Greenberg's anybody else, you know.' And when Valliere preface was re-printed for the Newman exhibition
approach in his disciple Michael Fried; Dan asked in surprise 'You think Graham discovered Greenberg organized for French & Co. in 1959.
Flavin criticizes Greenberg—and everyone else—in Pollock ?', De Kooning replied: 'Of course he did. 14 Michael Fried states that Louis and Noland
his enjoyably garrulous 'Some Other Comments', Who the hell picked him out? The other critics went to Greenberg in 1953 (`The Achievement of
Artforum, December 1967. came later—much later.' De Kooning also noted Morris Louis', Artforum, February 1967).
6 Greenberg was editor of Partisan Review from that it was through this exhibition that he and 15 cf. James Fitzsimmons, 'Critic Picks Some
1941-3, and re-entered the New York art world Pollock and Krasner became acquainted; Green- Promising Painters', Art Digest, January 15, 1954,
through his friendships with Hofmann students berg probably met them at the same time, through pp. 10-11.
like Lee Krasner (cf. his 'The Late Thirties in Lee Krasner. 16 Rosenberg wrote an introduction to 'Six Ameri-
New York', Art and Culture, pp. 230-3). His associa- 9 It is enlightening to compare Greenberg's contri- can Artists' exhibited at Galerie Maeght, Paris,
tion with Partisan Review automatically involved bution with those of other critics and museum 1947; the exhibition included work by Baziotes,
him with Marxism, for the magazine was founded directors in a 'Symposium: The State of American Gottlieb, and Motherwell, and the essay was
by the Communist party specifically to counteract Art', Magazine of Art, March 1949. Almost all the partially reprinted in Possibilities I, 1947/8. He
`Bohemianism in Literature' (cf. Harold Rosen- contributors except Greenberg were suspicious of also contributed an essay to the catalogue of the
berg, The Tradition of the New, London, 1962, the quality of American art within an international `Intrasubjectivists' exhibition at Samuel Kootz
pp. 250-1). Greenberg's Marxism influenced his context, and believed, like Daniel Catton Rich, Gallery in 1949: an important early group exhibi-
commitment to journalism as modern communica- that 'the leaders of modern painting and sculpture tion with works by Baziotes, De Kooning, Gorky,
tion with the mass public; years later, sure that will be found in Europe or Mexico rather than in Gottlieb, Hofman , Motherwell, Pollock, Reinhardt,
academic art-history and belles-lettres criticism the United States'. Greenberg, however, asserted Rothko, Tomlin, Mark Tobey, and Morris Graves.
were hopelessly retardataire, he asserted that 'It that young artists like Pollock, De Kooning, and 17 He was joint editor (with Robert Motherwell
belongs to journalism... that each new phase of Motherwell were doing things qualitatively match- and John Cage) of Possibilities I, 1947/8; he contri-
modernist art should be hailed as a start of a whole ing anything elsewhere and that 'they are actually buted poetry and criticism to Tiger's Eye (edited at
new epoch in art, marking a decisive break with ahead of the French artists who are their contem- one time by Barnett Newman) and to It Is (the
the past.' (`Modernist Painting', Arts Yearbook No. poraries in age'. It was not a large step from this journal of the Abstract Expressionists' Club' in the
4, 1960.) sort of defensive enthusiasm to real chauvinism. 1950s).
256