{"data":{"id":"511","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":511,"topgoose_id":2066,"tms_id":511,"display_name":"Adolph Gottlieb","sort_name":"Gottlieb Adolph","display_date":"1903–1974","begin_date":"1903","end_date":"1974","biography":"\u003cp\u003eBy the late 1930s, Adolph Gottlieb believed that neither American Realism nor European Modernism could adequately address the political and social crises unfolding worldwide. For Gottlieb, who had trained as a Realist painter, such precarious conditions demanded a new art that was universal, open to interpretation, and made up of subject matter that was “tragic and timeless.” In developing this new pictorial language, Gottlieb turned to sources as diverse as classical mythology, psychoanalytic theory, and Native American, African, and Oceanic artifacts (which he collected and saw in museums in the United States and abroad).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Pictographs\u003c/em\u003e (1941–52), a series of oil paintings, gouache drawings, and prints, borrow loosely from a wide cultural terrain that Gottlieb characterized as “primitive and archaic.” In each work a gridded, planar ground is inscribed with an array of fragmented graphic symbols that evoke their varied origins while eschewing specific cultural reference. The series suggests mythic and emotional content without recourse to illusionism, and in this regard anticipates much Abstract Expressionist painting to come.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/2287\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eVigil\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, from the \u003cem\u003ePictographs\u003c/em\u003e, employs a chaotic mix of eyes, zigzags, squiggles, and masklike faces that jostle within rectangular compartments on a black ground. As with many of the \u003cem\u003ePictographs\u003c/em\u003e, the thick\nlayers of paint and roughly sketched lines\nconjure the prehistoric wall drawings from\nwhich the series takes its name. Though\nsome of the forms here resemble designs\nmade by the Northwest Coast Indians,\nthe overall impression is eclectic and cannot\nbe interpreted according to a single cultural\nsystem. Gottlieb arranged and selected\nhis pictographs according to free association,\nand hoped that they would evoke a sense\nof “ambiguity and mystery.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500004904","wikidata_id":"Q365388","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:59:07.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-29T07:03:49.969-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/511/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/511/exhibitions"}}}}