A dolph Gottlieb’s Pink Ground (1969) perfectly embodies the artist’s enigmatic and unique position between the two ostensibly disparate groups of Abstract Expressionists: color field painters and action painters. Juxtaposing the vibrant primary colors of the upper portion of the composition against the gestural, expressive elements below, Gottlieb expands upon the visual language he developed throughout his career and situates his work in dialogue with the course of abstraction in the twentieth century.

Gottlieb resisted the division drawn between the color field painters’ investigations of the ruminative power of color and the action painters’ gestural and explosive compositions. Instead, Gottlieb married these elements in his practice, embracing the balance and visual harmony of opposites. An admirer of the work of psychologist Carl Jung, Gottlieb infused his works with the philosophy that: “’Nothing can exist without its opposite; the two were one in the beginning and will be one again in the end.’”(Carl Jung quoted in: Mary Davis MacNaughton, Adolph Gottlieb: Works on Paper, 1966-1973, 1990, p. 11).

Painted in the last five years of Gottlieb’s life, Pink Ground is a lyrical synthesis of the major series in his illustrative career. The present work evokes the visual lexicon of Gottlieb’s Pictographs (1941-1951), early works in which the artist fused an exploration of Surrealism and universal visual symbols. Pink Ground also recalls the large horizontal format of the Imaginary Landscapes (1951-1957) and the powerful compositions of his highly acclaimed Bursts (1957-1974). In these works, Gottlieb divided his compositions into two distinct portions, creating a perceptible force between the stasis of the upper elements and the kinesis of the lower elements. Like the Bursts, Pink Ground conveys a paradoxical synergy between stillness and dynamism.

In with the upper portion of the canvas, vivid yellow, red, and blue forms hover in an almost planetary orbit. The nearly palpable magnetic pull between the shapes inspires meditation in the viewer – even recalling the feeling of trance created in Mark Rothko’s works. Suspended in the boundless space of the canvas, the floating orbs also conjure the schema of Miró’s ‘dream paintings’ (1927-1930) and the pendulous balance of Alexander Calder’s mobiles. These yellow, red, and blue elements come in stark contrast to the lower portion of the composition, where, drawing on his earlier Pictographs, Gottlieb paints layers of energetic symbols in black, grey, and white. The lower area of the composition suggests a battleground – with explosive splatters of paint like those in Jackson Pollock’s works. Completely unique and yet in perpetual dialogue with fellow masters of twentieth-century art, Gottlieb’s paintings have canonical significance in the history of abstraction.

Gottlieb’s paintings not only engage with art historical giants of the twentieth century, but also aptly speak to the concerns of World War II and the post-war period. While the Pictographs provided a universal visual language during years of international division and warfare, the Bursts eerily reference the distress of the post-war era and the Atomic Age. Pink Ground, drawing on the previous thirty years of the artist’s career, provides an essential examination of the dualities that inform contemporary experience: chaos and calmness, war and harmony, action and reflection. Beautifully unifying the major themes of Gottlieb’s practice, Pink Ground (1969) is an exemplary work within Gottlieb’s oeuvre.

Artist

Adolph Gottlieb