Page 28 - Studio International - January 1973

cubist structure and burst through the limits of County Museum of Art in 1964. It is generally and take, and the painting comes out well' -
applied to the work of Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Pollock, from a statement published in
cubist drawing, as if challenging us to see
Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler and others Possibilities, Winter 1947/8.
such palpable stuffs as they are made from as and sometimes generally to the 'Washington School' "Jackson always knew it: that if you meant it
mere 'aspects of a continuum of forms and of the sixties. enough when you did it, it will mean that much' -
"One shape in relation to other shapes makes the Franz Kline, from an interview with Frank O'Hara:
planes'.
"expression" ' - Hofmann, in a panel discussion, `Franz Kline talking', Evergreen Review, Autumn
The absorption by painting of functions of from 'Artists' Sessions at Studio 35 (1950)' 1958.
drawing seems to have been what rendered published in Modern Artists in America, "See, for instance, Motherwell's account of Pollock
Wittenborn Schultz, New York, 1951. working on a collage for an exhibition at Art of This
this possible; in fact, though the Women's
"Clement Greenberg, Hofmann, Editions Georges Century in 1943, in H. H. Arnason, 'On Robert
breasts are painted, they are never modelled. Fall, Paris 1961. Motherwell and his Early Work', Art International,
They are characteristically laid on each with "To the Surrealists, 'automatism' signified any January 1966. Motherwell describes Pollock
procedure employed as a means of avoiding 'control' spitting, burning and tearing.
one grand loop of the brush. 'Modelling' in
over composition; the term might be applied to "Matta in 'Concerning the Beginnings of the New
de Kooning's mature work becomes a Arp's techniques involved in dropping pieces of York School'.
generalized, matter-of-fact function of the torn paper or of string, to Picabia's ink blots, to 28'My painting is direct . . . The method of painting is
Ernst's frottages and decalcomanias, and to the the natural growth out of a need. I want to express
paint, not a local, specific, depicting function.
Surrealists' game of 'heads, bodies and tails', my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is
In face of his work after Excavation, it is no Le Corps Exquise (in which Motherwell just a means of arriving at a statement. When I am
wonder that a declassification of de Kooning's participated). For the Surrealists these techniques painting I have a general notion as to what I am
were essentially strategic; once an 'image' had been about. I can control the flow of paint: there is no
status among the Abstract Expressionists
identified, or an interesting texture isolated, accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.' -
should have become so crucial a priority for conscious and sophisticated controls were Pollock, from his own narration to the film
exponents of the post-fifties 'form without reemployed to exploit it. For Pollock 'automatism' Jackson Pollock, by Hans Namuth and Paul
content' ideology.41 was more a characteristic of a 'rhythm' maintained Falkenberg, 1951. (Printed in Bryan Robertson,
throughout the painting. Jackson Pollock). Compare with note 24; the sense of
I've been a Jungian for a long time . . . painting growth in confidence is perhaps a measure of
is a state of being . . . Painting is self discovery.' - Pollock's increased facility in his chosen
Pollock, interviewed by Selden Rodman, June techniques.
1956, published in Conversations with Artists, "From 'Concerning the Beginnings of the New York
New York, 1957. When Pollock entered analysis in School'.
'In an article published in Artforum in September 1939, it was with a Jungian analyst. "See note 24.
1965, Philip Leider, then editor of that journal, "See Rosalind Krauss, 'Jackson Pollock's Drawings' "For a strong statement of this view see Clement
outlined the nature of the argument between the in Artforum, January 1971: 'During the eighteen Greenberg, "American-Type" Painting': 'I do not
two positions, partly in relation to the concerns of months of his analysis in 1939-40 Jackson Pollock think it exaggerated to say that Pollock's 1946-50
younger critics, notably Michael Fried. produced for discussion between himself and his manner really took up Analytical Cubism from the
'In 'Literalism and Abstraction', an article on Frank analyst . . . 69 pages of drawings . . . The imagery on point at which Braque and Picasso had left it when,
Stella published in Artforum, April 1970, Leider almost half of these sheets relates directly to in their collages of 1912 and 1913, they drew back
traced the development of 'rival' ideologies from Picasso's Guernica. In conversation, Dr Henderson from the utter abstractness for which Analytical
the work of Pollock. has said that these drawings were dream Cubism seemed headed'.
'Bibliography compiled by Lucy Lippard. An representations which Pollock produced "The Subjects of the Artist School was founded by
updated version of this catalogue has been specifically for his analytic sessions - rather than William Baziotes, David Hare, Motherwell and
published by Thames and Hudson as The New York drawings made independently of the therapy and Rothko in the autumn of 1948. Still was involved in
School. brought into the sessions to facilitate the process of the initial planning, but did not teach. Newman
4Abstract Expressionism; The Triumph of American association. Are we to think, then, that in 1939-40 joined the faculty at the beginning of the second
Painting, Praeger, New York, and Pall Mall Press, Pollock's dream life was taken up with the term.
London, 1970. Writers on the subject, especially Guernica?' These drawings were exhibited at the "Robert Motherwell interviewed by Max Kozloff,
those without regular access to original material, are Whitney Museum in New York in 1971. Artforum, September 1965.
bound for some time to come to be indebted to "From 'Concerning the Beginnings of the New York "It was with the utmost reluctance that I found the
Sandler's researches. The present writer is no School 1939-43' : Simon Busa and Matta figure could not serve my purposes . . . . But a time
exception. interviewed by Sidney Simon; Art International, came when none of us could use the figure without
'The Los Angeles County Museum show included Summer, 1967. mutilating it' - Rothko, quoted by Dore Ashton in an
Baziotes, de Kooning, Gorky, Gottlieb, Guston, "See 'Concerning the Beginnings of the New York article in the New York Times, 35 October 1958.
Hofmann, Kline, Motherwell, Newman, Pollock, School 1939-43' : Robert Motherwell 35'. . . from 1951 on his work shows the strong
Pousette-Dart, Reinhardt, Rothko, Still and interviewed by Sidney Simon; Art International, tendency . . . to revert to traditional drawing at the
Tomlin. Sandler devotes individual chapters to January 1967. expense of opticality These . . . works
Gorky, Baziotes, Pollock, de Kooning, Hofmann, "See 'Concerning the beginnings of the New York probably mark Pollock's decline as a major artist' -
Still, Rothko, Newman, Gottlieb, Motherwell and School'. Baziotes, an early friend of Matta's, had Michael Fried, from his introductory essay to the
Reinhardt, and discusses James Brooks, Bradley met Pollock, de Kooning, Kamrowski and Busa on catalogue of the exhibition 'Three American
Walker Tomlin, Franz Kline and Philip Guston as `the Project' - the scheme organized by the Works Painters' (Noland, Olitski, Stella) at the Fogg Art
`Later Gesture Painters'. Progress Administration to employ artists during Museum, Harvard University, 1965.
6' "When the revolution became an institution", the period of the depression. Painters tended to work "See Thomas Hess, Willem de Kooning, catalogue of
when avant garde became official art, I guess they either on public commissions or in an 'easel the exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern
put down the date 1950 for it' - Ad Reinhardt painting division'. Regular employment under the Art, New York and shown at the Tate Gallery,
(from a talk given at the ICA, London, May 28, WPA encouraged many 'part-time' painters, London, 1968.
1964, published in Studio International, December de Kooning among them, to see themselves as "The series Woman I to Woman VI was exhibited in
1967). professionals. For general information on the de Kooning's third one-man show, at the Sidney
'For 'background' see Dore Ashton's recently Project see William F. McDonald, Federal Relief Janis Gallery in New York, in March 1953.
published book, The Life and Times of the New York Administration and the Arts, Ohio State University "See Hess, op. cit. Hess quotes Nietzsche:
School, Adams and Dart, Bath, 1972, reviewed in Press, Columbus, 1969. .. This everlasting, baleful "too late" - The
Studio International, November 1972. "From 'An Interview with Matta', conducted by melancholy of all that is finished'.
"From a statement in Sidney Janis, Abstract and Max Kozloff, published in Artforum, September "The painter Walter Darby Bannard has written
Surrealist Art in America, Raynal and Hitchcock, 1965. some single-minded articles on relationships of
New York 1944. 22In 5947 his painting Fury II was included in an surface and scale between cubist and abstract-
"See Ethel Schwabacher, Arshile Gorky, Macmillan exhibition on the theme of the 'Ideographic Picture' expressionist painting: see, for instance, 'Cubism,
and Whitney Museum, New York, 1957: 'Gorky which Barnett Newman organized for the Betty Abstract Expressionism, David Smith', Artforum,
frequently looked at . . . the work of one master Parsons Gallery. April 1968; 'Willem de Kooning', Artforum, April
through the eyes of another . . . . he was to see "Greenberg quotes Hofmann to the effect that for 1969; 'Touch and Scale: Cubism, Pollock,
Duchamp through the eyes of Matta.' fifteen years he 'drew obsessively' in order to Newman and Still', Artforum.
10William Rubin, Arshile Gorky, Surrealism, and the `sweat Cubism out' - Greenberg, Hofmann. "Hess op. cit.
New American Painting, in Art International, "When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what "Hess, op. cit., charts the changes in Greenberg's
February 1963. I'm doing. It is only after a sort of "get acquainted" judgment of de Kooning. See his note 11.
"Clement Greenberg, 'The Late Thirties in New period that I see what I have been about. I have no
York' (1957), printed in Art and Culture, Beacon fears about making changes, destroying the image
Press, Boston, 1965. etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try This essay was commissioned by Penguin Books for
"The term 'Post-painterly Abstraction' was coined by to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact publication in 'Concepts of Modern Art' edited by
Anthony Richardson and Nikos Stangos, which will be
Clement Greenberg as the title of a mixed with the painting that the result is a mess. published as a Pelican original in August 1973. Part II
exhibition selected by himself for the Los Angeles Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give will appear in Studio International, February 1973.
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