Page 26 - Studio International - February 1973

an exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York)
and on the Art of the South Seas (in Ambos Mundos;
the essay was a review of an exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art, New York; first printed in
English in Studio International, February 1970).
"'The Romantics were prompted'.
'Most of the people I knew, they just laughed about
his iRothko's! painting. They just didn't take him
seriously at all. He and Barney Newman were
ridiculed' — Friedel Dzubas, interviewed by
Kozloff, loc. cit. Neither Rothko nor Newman were
lionised as Pollock and de Kooning often were by
1950. Newman was omitted from the Museum of
Modern Art's '15 Americans' show in 1952, and,
more surprisingly, from the same museum's
touring show, 'Modern Art in the United States',
which came to the Tate Gallery in 1956. It was not
until after 1959, when works from before 1953 were
shown at French and Co., that Newman became a
well regarded painter in New York. He produced
very few works during the later fifties.
"According to Barbara Reise (`The Stance of
Barnett Newman', Studio International, February
1970), Newman 'requested' a close viewing
distance 'in a note pinned to the wall of his first
one-man exhibitions'.
66From a statement in Interiors, May 1951.
"From excerpts from a lecture given at the Pratt
Institute in 1958, noted by Dore Ashton and
published in Cimaise, December 1958.
"From 'The First Man was an Artist'.
"From 'The Romantics were prompted'.
"Irony: a modern ingredient . . . A form of self-
Mark Rothko, Sketch for Mural No 6 1958. Tate Gallery, London
effacement and self-examination in which a man
can for a moment escape his fate' — Rothko, in a list
of 'ingredients' of a 'recipe' for art, Pratt Institute
42See Max Kozloff's interview with Friedel Dzubas in is Adolph Gottlieb. lecture (see note 67).
Artforum, September 1965. "Gottlieb, WNYC broadcast, 1943. "See Newman's statement accompanying the
"Certainly Rosenberg's view of de Kooning is as "Newman, 'The New Sense of Fate', previously exhibition of these paintings at the Guggenheim
Museum, New York, in 1966, and the account of a
central to his notion of 'Action Painting' as unpublished essay of 1945, quoted by Hess, loc. cit.
Greenberg's view of Pollock is to his notion of In his paper of 1951, 'What Abstract Art means to public 'conversation' with Thomas Hess on the same
'American-Type Painting'. Me', de Kooning also referred to the bomb : occasion, given in Hess, Newman, op. cit.
"From 'Concerning the Beginnings of the New York `Today, some people think that the light of the atom "See statement by Newman to accompany a
reproduction of Who's afraid of Red, Yellow and
School'. bomb will change the concept of painting once and
"See Greenberg's "American-Type" Painting', and for all. The eyes that actually saw the light melted Blue I, in Art Now: New York, March 1969:
also his essay 'After Abstract Expressionism', out of sheer ecstasy. For one instant, everybody `Why give in to these purists and formalists who
originally published in Art International October was the same colour. It made angels out of have put a mortgage on red, yellow and blue,
1962. everybody. A truly Christian light, painful but transforming these colours into an idea that
"See Gottlieb and Rothko, joint letter to the editor of forgiving.' destroys them as colours ?'
the New York Times, 13 June 1943; Gottlieb and "Quoted by Hess, loc. cit. "See 'The Romantics were prompted'.
Rothko broadcast, 'The Portrait and the Modern "Onement I was painted on Newman's birthday, "Excerpts from the Pratt Institute lecture. See note
Artist', WYNC, New York, 13 October 1943; January 29 1948. Onement II, Newman's next 70. Two of Newman's paintings are explicitly
Rothko, 'The Romantics were prompted', work, was painted between October and December concerned with death: the sombre Abraham,
Possibilities, Winter 1947-8; Gottlieb, statement in 1948. According to Hess, Newman completed 20 painted in 1949 on the death of his father; and the
Tiger's Eye, December 1947. paintings between October 1948 and December black-on-raw-canvas Shining Forth (to George)
'See 'Questions to Stella and Judd', interview by 1949. painted in 1961, the year of his brother's death.
Bruce Glaser, Art News, September 1966; "See note 46. "The phrase is Kandinsky's own, from 'Concerning
Don Judd, 'Complaints Part 1', Studio "Gottlieb, Untitled Edition — MKR's Art Outlook, the Spiritual in Art', 1912.
International, April 1969. No. 6, New York, December 1945. "Willem de Kooning, from 'What Abstract Art
48Still, statement from 15 Americans, edited by "Quoted by Hess, loc. cit. The original source is an means to Me', one of three papers given at a
Dorothy C. Miller, Museum of Modern Art, New interview with David Sylvester. In this interview symposium at the Museum of Modern Art, New
York, 1952. Newman affirmed the importance to him of this York, February 1951; published in the Bulletin of
49In the context of the Abstract Expressionists' use of particular painting, partly in terms of the the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Spring 1951.
colour, one can find common ground in the non-associativeness of its painted ground. 77From 'The Sublime is Now', Tiger's Eye, December
anti-naturalism of Still, Newman and Rothko, in "Rothko, 'The Romantics were prompted'. 1948. The notion of the sublime was crucial for
de Kooning's 'vulgarization' — an import from the "See Newman, 'The First Man was an Artist', in Newman, Rothko and Still, and the word itself
world of commercial reproduction in which he Tiger's Eye, October 1947: 'Undoubtedly the first was one they often employed. In 1963, Still wrote in
served a part of his apprenticeship — and in man was an artist. A science of paleontology that a statement accompanying an exhibition of
Pollock's affirmation of the status of paint as matter sets forth this proposition can be written if it paintings at the University of Pennsylvania, 'The
first and foremost. Pollock's colour itself, as builds on the postulate that the aesthetic act _sublime ? A paramount consideration in my
opposed to his means of application, is rarely always precedes the social one . . . It is important to studies and work from my earliest student days. In
considered as a major factor in reviews of his keep in mind that the necessity for dream is stronger essence it is most elusive of capture or definition .
post-1946 work; yet such works as Lucifer (1947) than any utilitarian need. In the language of In a frequently quoted article on 'The Abstract
and Blue Poles (1952) depend upon significant uses science, the necessity for understanding the Sublime' (Art News, February 1961), Robert
and functions of colour as much as do any unknowable comes before any desire to discover Rosenblum wrote of 'How some of the most
abstract-expressionist works. Frank Stella's work the unknown'. See also Rothko, 'The Romantics heretical concepts of Modern American Abstract
seems to me to owe much to this aspect of were prompted' : .. the solitary human figure could Painting relate to the Visionary Nature-painting of a
Pollock's. not raise its limbs in a single gesture that might Century ago'. See also Lawrence Alloway:
50Still, loc. cit. indicate its concern with the fact of mortality and an `The American Sublime', in Living Arts 2, ICA,
"Newman, 'The Problem of Subject Matter', insatiable appetite for ubiquitous experience in London, 1963; Patrick McCaughey: 'Clyfford Still
c. 1944, previously unpublished essay quoted in the face of this fact. Nor could the solitude be overcome and the Gothic Imagination', in Artforum, April
Introduction by Thomas Hess to the catalogue of the 1970; Edward M. Levine: 'Abstract Expressionism:
Barnett Newman exhibition, Tate Gallery, 1972. "These involvements are well substantiated and well The Mystical Experience', in Art Journal, Fall 1971.
"In his introduction to the Tate catalogue, Hess documented; Gottlieb began early to collect "De Kooning, 'What Abstract Art means to Me'.
provides considerable and mostly convincing primitive art, and he and Rothko made various
information to substantiate Kabbalist interpretations references to the 'immediacy' of primitive, archaic
of many of Newman's themes and titles. It seems and antique myths and images, notably in the 1943
hard to overestimate the importance to Newman of broadcast: Newman published articles in 1946 on
his Jewish culture. Mark Rothko was also Jewish, as Northwest Coast Indian Painting (introduction to
6o