Adolph Gottlieb in artist quotes on painting & life in the U.S.; free resource, American art history

Adolph Gottlieb in quotes - the artist on his ‘Pictograph’ painting art and artistic life in the U.S. - free art-resource for students, pupils and teachers in American art history

.
In his quotes Gottlieb described himself as a political left artist. Moreover he explains his painterly method of using compartments in his ‘Pictograph’ (see image right) paintings, as a modern way of visual stories. Gottlieb was the most symbolic of the so-called American ‘Color Field’ painters in the U.S.; he was the less abstract of them because he wanted to tell stories, stories in images.

Moreover Gottlieb published firm political statements on art and on American society. He acted publicly in New York, together with the artists Newman and Rothko in the 1940’s - they all were painters of the United states who were searching for the ‘Sublime’ in art.
.
Some selected artist-quotes of American artist Adolph Gottlieb - as a short introduction of his extended quotes in the PDF:

• ’The role of the artist, of course, has always been that of image-maker. Different times require different images. Today when our aspirations have been reduced to a desperate attempt to escape from evil, and times are out of joint, our obsessive, subterranean and pictographic images are the expression of the neurosis which is our reality. - Gottlieb’s quote, 1947: in ‘The Ideas of Art’, Tiger’s Eye, Vol. 1, nr 2, Dec. 1947, p. 43

• ’I have always worked on the assumption that if something is valid and meaningful to me, it will also be valid and meaningful to many others. Not to everyone of course. On the basis of this assumption I do not think of an audience when I work, but only of my own reactions. By the same token I do not worry whether what I am doing is art or not. If what I paint is expressive, if it seems to communicate the feeling that is important to me, then I am not concerned if my work does not have marked earmarks of art. - Gottlieb’s quote, 1951; in ‘Arts and Architecture’, vol. 68, no 9, United States, Sept. 1951, p. 21

• My work has been called abstract, surrealistic, totemistic and primitive… .I chose my own label and called my paintings ‘Pictographs’… - Gottlieb’s quote, 1951 in ‘Arts and Architecture’,…, p. 21
  .
  selection of free art-resources on American artist Adolph Gottlieb:

  • biographical notes of Adolph Gottlieb, on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Gottlieb
  • artist-quotes of Gottlieb, on Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adolph_Gottlieb
    .
    editor: Fons Heijnsbroek / Matrozenhof (FotoDutch on Wikiquote):<br>[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:FotoDutch]