Adolph Gottlieb - Classic Paintings

The exhibition focuses on two major images from Gottlieb's later work: Bursts and Imaginary Landscapes. In the early 1950s, Gottlieb began to further pare down his compositions resulting in horizontally oriented Imaginary Landscape paintings, such as the 7-by-12-foot work Groundscape (1956) included in this exhibition. Observing that the "all-over" motif that he had begun to utilize in 1941 had become a common element of American abstract painting, Gottlieb radically compressed his image to the mutually opposing dual registers of the Imaginary Landscape. In these paintings, the composition is divided into an upper and lower horizontal area, each one characterized by different painting techniques to yield seemingly opposing emotional material, while the paintings ultimately balance as a complex single image.