Adolph Gottlieb

Marlborough Gallery, New York
Private Collection
Albert A. Robin, Chicago
Gift of the above to the present owner

Rome, Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Adolph Gottlieb, March 1970, no. 4, illustrated
London, Marlborough Fine Art; Zürich, Marlborough Galerie AG, Adolph Gottlieb: Paintings 1959-1971, November 1971 - March 1972, pl. 14, p. 38, illustrated in color

This work is in good condition overall. There is evidence of light wear and handling at the edges with associated craquelure near the top left edge. There is evidence of fine and stable craquelure in the more heavily painted areas. There is a minor 2 inch surface abrasion located 17 inches from the bottom edge and 34 inches from the left edge. There are scattered surface accretions which fluoresce dimly under ultraviolet light. There is a 6 inch area of discoloration located 7 1/2 inches from the right edge and 8 inches from the top edge. Under ultraviolet light inspection there is no evidence of restoration. Framed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Considered one of the first Color Field painters and one of the forerunners of Lyrical Abstraction, expressionist painter Adolph Gottlieb privileges spatial configuration and compositional harmony in his paintings, to such an extent even that his work often seems conceived according to some sort of mathematical proportion. Gottlieb worked in series, his last of which, Burst, began in 1957, is his most pared down. Discs and winding masses remain his only imagery after years of pictographic painting inspired by the symbolism of American Indian art, a political decision that served as a corrective to his contemporaries whose genealogy can be almost exclusively traced to Europe. The rudimentary shapes arranged in the paintings from the Burst series exemplify Gottlieb's supreme skill as a colorist – the pigments are rich and their contrasts are almost academic in their perfection.

White Line #2, executed in 1968, includes Gottlieb's characteristic disc imagery in a typically mid-century palette of dark green, pumpkin orange, cobalt blue, and crimson red. Against a slightly mottled grey background, these saturated shapes confirm Gottlieb's own assertion that "tonal structure is the important thing in painting a picture. Color is only an extension of value. If values are right, colors will be right and I can decide upon any color scheme I wish. If a close range of values is chose, then color helps give variation of visual effect," (Adolph Gottlieb, Limited Edition, December, 1945).

The six-pronged sunburst in the canvas's bottom corner is painted with a childish, almost primitive angularity, though its form is iconic, almost-familiar, Calderesque. Small and singular, the shapes that constellate around the sunburst – black, yellow, periwinkle – are oriented so as to imply orbital movement. As Harold Rosenberg wrote in 1971, "Gottlieb's images are insignia of remoteness, of a continent or cosmos of the mind as distant as possible from the sign systems or twentieth-century New York. His emblems reach out to the magical idioms of medicine men, alchemists, astrologers. They are affiliated with hieroglyph and secret formula... But the sense of distant realist restrain his carefully placed circles, discs, rectangles and bars of color from translating themselves into the here-and-now of design for its own sake" (Harold Rosenberg, Gottlieb, New York, 1971, p. 7).