Adolph Gottlieb

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York

Private Collection (acquired from the above in October 1961)

Julian Weissman Fine Art, New York

Acquired from the above in January 1992 by the present owner

Art Institute of Chicago, 21st Annual Exhibition by the Society for Contemporary American Art, 1961, no. 27

In Adolph Gottlieb’s Elegy, a deep magenta disk radiates above an energetic mass of gestural black marks, generating the elemental dynamic tension between compositional elements that characterize the best of the artist’s acclaimed Burst paintings. A paragon of Gottlieb’s series begun in 1957, Elegy harnesses visual suspense between the ethereal glow of the upper orb and energetic eruption of the lower form, all with sparing application of pigment and line. A culminating series for the artist, the Burst paintings represent a pure manifestation of Gottlieb’s singular approach to abstraction cultivated over decades. Suspended in opposition and balance, contrast and harmony, Gottlieb’s composition conveys his command of both the gesture of Abstract Expressionism and the nuanced control of pigment in Color Field painting. While evoking both Ab Ex and Color Field painting, Gottlieb’s painting resists either classification and rather operates singularly as work that is transcendent and meditative as well as explosive and dynamic. The present work has been held in the esteemed collection of Geri Brawerman, a patron of the arts and renowned philanthropist, for over thirty years.

Precisely harnessing his visual language, Gottlieb radically refined and revolutionized Contemporary painting through his Burst paintings. Executed in 1961, Elegy features the signature elements of Gottlieb’s series—a luminous orb suspended above his eponymous burst from—but is punctuated by a transgressive, vibrant orange dash at the lower right. The vigorous energy of the lower field appears to emanate from the orange dash, as if it is a source of energy. Juxtaposing and unifying discrete entities, Gottlieb creates a profoundly powerful graphic force. The gestural movement of the lower form reveals intense freedom in movement and reflects Gottlieb’s inventiveness and visionary mind. The division of space between the painting's two entities further echo the duality at the core of the work, signifying the universe’s great harmonies: reality and the outer heaven, sun and earth, male and female, night and day, life and death.

Like some of his Abstract Expressionist peers, Gottlieb was deeply influenced by psychological theories—especially those of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Gottlieb’s fascination with psychology informed an investigation of the duality between the conscious and subconscious through his work. For the artist, painting as also a vehicle for discovery: “When I feel I am fully charged and ready to let go on the canvas, I’m not in a position to analyze and view myself in an objective way. I have to let my feelings go and it is only afterwards that I become aware of what my feelings really were. And for me, this is one of the fascinations and great experiences of painting, that I become aware of myself” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., Los Angeles, Manny Silverman Gallery, Adolph Gottlieb, Works on Paper: 1966 – 1973, 1990, p. 9).

As Brian O’Doherty observed in The New York Times in 1964, Gottlieb’s compositions are indeed electrifying: “His motif has orbited into electrifying new fields of color, the horizon dropping away completely, the globes, usually single, now taking on a new radiance, raised with an almost palpable transgression of gravity as they dip and swim steadfastly over the explosive calligraphs below—writhing, kinking, hooked, twisted, contracted, precisely exploded-all the verbs are active in this extraordinary visual grammar.” (Brian O’Doherty, "Adolph Gottlieb: The Dualism of an Inner Life,” The New York Times, 23 February 1964, p. 17) The two opposing forms of Gottlieb’s Bursts function as a visual manifestation of Jung’s theory of the ego and the unconscious: two mental selves, neither of which can exist without the other. Through a masterful exploration of gesture and pigment through both expression and restraint, Gottlieb contends also with conceptual psychology theory. Gottlieb’s seminal sequences of discs and ellipses emerged in his corpus after he diverged from his Pictographs of the 1940s. In the late 1950s, Gottlieb deconstructed these grids, subverting disparate geometry and colors across limitless space. With an incredibly nuanced perception of contemporary ideology and culture, Gottlieb’s work distills painting to its elemental form. Through the stunning rendition of pigment, contrasting structures, and spatial tension in Elegy, Gottlieb explores these conceptual notions and merges the psychological with the visual.