[The Irascibles] | Black and White Photograph, signed by the artists

[The Irascibles]

Group portrait of The Irascibles taken by Nina Leen, November 24, 1950, signed by Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Jackson Pollock, Hedda Sterne, Richard Pousette-Dart, James Brooks, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, and Bradley Walker Tomlin

Gelatin silver print (354 × 283 mm; framed 440 mm x 350 mm). Life Magazine stamp to verso; crease marks along corners and at right, light surface scratches, light spots to verso, scuffs to frame.

Photograph by Nina Leen of fifteen abstract expressionist artists coined "The Irascibles" as published in Life Magazine, signed by the artists.

A 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, entitled American Painting Today 1950, sparked protests from prominent American painters, earning them the title "The Irascible Eighteen." The exhibition, which was curated through a nationwide competition launched by the MET, sought to comprise a “survey of the condition of American painting” at that time (“American Painters”). In a charge led by Adolph Gottlieb, eighteen self-proclaimed “advanced artists of America” penned an open letter addressed to Ronald L. Redmond, reigning president of the MET, broadcasting their refusal to submit their work for consideration and denouncing the “monster national exhibition” (Gottlieb, et. al). The artists took issue with the MET’s selection of artistic jurors who proved “notoriously hostile to advanced art,” believing the aesthetically conservative committee did “not warrant any hope that a just proportion of advanced art will be included [in the exhibition]” (Gottlieb, et al). This letter of protest was published in the New York Times on 22 May 1950. The very next day, an article in defense of the MET was published in the Herald-Tribune entitled “The Irascible Eighteen,” coining the moniker of the now legendary group of artists also known as the New York School.

Following the opening of the MET’s American Painting Today exhibition in December 1950, Life Magazine reached out to the band of outspoken artists for a report on the exhibition and their public condemnation of it. This feature included fifteen of the eighteen ‘irascibles’ posing for a group portrait taken by Russian-born photographer Nina Leen, as seen offered here. As pictured from left rear, the captured subjects are: Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne; (next row) Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jimmy Ernst, Jackson Pollock, James Brooks, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin; (in foreground) Theordoros Stamos, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Running alongside an article entitled "The Metropolitan and Modern Art" in the 15 January 1951 edition of Life, the photograph was captioned “Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show” (“The Irascibles”). In a personal letter from Gottlieb to Weldon Kees, Gottlieb recounts the Life photo session, revealing that originally “Life wanted [the artists] to pose on the steps of the MET” with each of "the irascibles" “holding one of [their] paintings” (Gottlieb). Clearly, this idea was “refused” by the artists and, “after considerable negotiating,” they agreed instead to this “straight shot in the studio” (Gottlieb). The now iconic photograph has since been described as the “unofficial portrait of the New School” (“The Irascibles: Painters”).

In 2020, this photograph served as the foundation for an exhibition at The Fundación Juan March Museum in Madrid entitled “The Irascibles: Painters Against The Museum (New York: 1950).” This exhibition, centered around Leen’s photograph, told the story of 'the irascibles’ alongside a presentation of their abstract expressionist work. The present offering of the 1950 original gelatin silver print, is made even more significant by its rare collection of signatures from nine of the fifteen pictured artists: Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Jackson Pollock, Hedda Sterne, Richard Pousette-Dart, James Brooks, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin.  

REFERENCE:

“18 Painters Boycott Metropolitan; Charge ‘Hostility to Advanced Art’.” New York Times, 22 May 1950; “American Painters on View.” New York Times, 8 Dec. 1950, p. 28.

“American Painting Today 1950: A National Competitive Exhibition.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1950; Fundación Juan March. The Irascibles: Painters Against the Museum (New York, 1950). YouTube, 17 Apr. 2020, https://youtu.be/UpQlBnhhRiQ?feature=shared. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023; Gottlieb, Adolph, et al. “Open Letter to Ronald L. Redmond.” 20 May 1950; Gottlieb, Adolph. Received by Weldon Kees, 18 Jan. 1951; “The Metropolitan and Modern Art.” Life Magazine, 15 Jan. 1951, pp. 33–34