About the Artist

1903:
Adolph Gottlieb is born on March 14, 1903, in New York City. His parents are Emil Gottlieb (1873 – 1947) and Elsie Berger Gottlieb (1881 – 1958). His given name is Adolf, possibly after his maternal grandfather. The family lives at 295 East 10th Street in Manhattan at the time of his birth. Adolph is the oldest of three children, and the only male child.

1920:
Leaves high school and begins to work in his father’s wholesale stationery business, Gottlieb & Sons, at 264 East 2nd Street in Manhattan. Enrolls in the Art Students’ League, where he takes evening classes under John Sloan and attends lectures by Robert Henri. Shares a studio on East Broadway with Chaim Gross, Louis Schanker, and Moses and Isaac Soyer.

1921:
At the age of 18, Gottlieb and a friend work their passage to Europe on the Steamer Zeeland. He lives at 269 Rue Saint Jacques in Paris for 3–6 months. Attends sketch classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and visits the Musée du Louvre daily. Gottlieb later recalls seeing the Fernand Léger painting Three Women (now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art) when it was first exhibited.

1922:
Travels in central Europe visiting art galleries and museums in Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, and Prague. During his travels, Gottlieb collects books on art and artists, ranging from monographs on Rembrandt, Tiepolo, Grünewald, Cézanne, Picasso, and Klee, to studies of art movements, notably Der Weg zum Kubismus by Daniel Henry (Kahnweiler), and studies of nontraditional and non-Western art, including Barbaren und Klassiker by Wilhelm Hausenstein and Bildnerei Der Geisteskranken by Hans Prinzhorn. Elsie Gottlieb travels to Europe to reunite with family. Gottlieb meets his mother in Berlin, and they return to New York together, departing from Hamburg on August 18.

1923 – 1924:
In New York, encouraged by his family, he attends high school classes in the evenings while working at his father’s business. Re-enrolls in the Art Students’ League; takes classes with John Sloan and Henry Schnackenberg and meets fellow student Barnett Newman, who becomes a lifelong friend. Visits galleries and museums with Newman; they continue this practice for about two decades. Meets John Graham who becomes an important friend and colleague through the Arts Students’ League.

1928 –1929:
Begins showing his paintings at the Opportunity Gallery on West 56th Street in New York. He meets and begins lasting friendships with Milton Avery and Mark Rothko who also exhibit at the Gallery. Supports himself by working several odd jobs, such as sign painting, teaching at settlement houses, and summer camps. Enters and is awarded first prize, along with the artist Konrad Cramer, in the Dudensing National Competition. His prize is a solo exhibition at the prestigious Dudensing Gallery on East 57th Street in Manhattan. Adolph Gottlieb meets Esther Dick at a party in Greenwich Village.

1930:
Rents a studio, which is occasionally shared with Barnett Newman, on East Broadway in Manhattan. His first solo exhibition opens at the Dudensing Gallery in New York on May 1. Gottlieb exhibits 18 paintings. The exhibition receives positive press notices in The Day and The New York Herald Tribune.

1933:
Gottlieb changes the spelling of his first name from Adolf to Adolph in reaction to the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Summers in East Gloucester, Massachusetts, along with the Averys. The Gottliebs vacation in East Gloucester for three consecutive summers. They move to 155 State Street in Brooklyn in November. Gottlieb becomes close friends with the artist David Smith, who lives at 124 State Street. Smith and Gottlieb visit daily until Smith moves to Bolton Landing, New York, in 1940. Gottlieb purchases a second-hand etching press and begins making prints in his home, a practice he will continue through 1947. The first known print is from a plate made by and commemorating the friendship among three young artist-couples: Adolph and Esther Gottlieb, David Smith and Dorothy Dehner, and Edgar Levy and Lucille Corcos Levy. Each artist drew a portrait of another, and a proof was pulled on Gottlieb’s press.

1935:
Gottlieb is included in the inaugural group exhibition of Gallery Secession, New York, December 1934 – January 1935. He is a founding member of The Ten, a group of artists dedicated to expressionist and abstract painting. The Gottliebs travel to Europe visiting Amsterdam, Brussels, Tervuren, and Paris.  In addition to museums and contemporary galleries, the Gottliebs visit galleries that display African art, some of which were recommended by John Graham. They extend their stay in order to see the exhibition L'Art Italien de Cimabue à Tiepolo (XIIe au XVIIe siècle) at the Petit Palais. Gottlieb spends the money he had saved for a last special meal in Paris to purchase five African sculptures he is offered. They return to New York on September 3. Four Gottlieb paintings are included in The Ten: First Exhibition, An Independent Group, Montross Gallery, New York, NY December 16, 1935–January 4, 1936.

1937:
Gottlieb spends part of the summer in Fire Island, New York; then visits Avery in Bondeville, Vermont. He resigns from WPA in October. To improve Esther Gottlieb’s health, the Gottliebs leave New York City on October 27 and drive to Tucson, Arizona, where they live and work for the next eight months.

1938:
In a letter dated March 3 in Arizona, Gottlieb writes to his friend Paul Bodin in New York, “We get the Sunday Times every Wednesday and…we don't seem to be missing much. From what I gather is going on (aside from Cézanne and Picasso now and then) I wouldn't swap all the shows of a month in N.Y. for a visit to the State Museum here which has a marvelous collection of Indian things.” In July, the Gottliebs return to New York from Arizona, then spend the summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In September they move to an apartment at 121 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY.

1939:
Gottlieb enters and wins a nationwide mural competition sponsored by the US Department of the Treasury. He paints a mural for the Yerington, Nevada, post office. In June one painting is selected for the New York World's Fair art exhibition American Art Today. Spends the summer in Woodstock, New York.

1940:
In April, Gottlieb is one of eleven artists who resigns from the American Artists Congress to protest the Congress’s refusal to oppose the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. He helps found the organization “The Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors”; Gottlieb and Mark Rothko serve as the Cultural Committee. Gottlieb has a solo exhibition of paintings created in Arizona at the Artist’s Gallery in New York, NY, April 16 – 30. The Gottliebs move to 130 State Street, Brooklyn, NY. He and Esther summer at 81 Mt. Pleasant Avenue, East Gloucester, Massachusetts; they will return to this address each year through 1945.

1943:
Gottlieb exhibits as a founding member in the First Exhibition of New York Artists—Painters, 444 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, February 13–27. This group of abstract painters includes Mark Rothko, John Graham, and George Constant. 

Gottlieb co-authors a letter with Mark Rothko, edited by Barnett Newman, which voices the first formal statement of concerns of the Abstract Expressionist artists. The letter is published in the New York Times on June 13. Among others, Gottlieb and Rothko listed the following “aesthetic beliefs”: “We favor the simple expression of complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.” “There is no such thing as good painting about nothing. We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless.” On October 13, Gottlieb and Rothko present their views on the radio program “Art in New York,” broadcast on station WNYC. Read more about Gottlieb and Rothko’s statement here.

1944:
Gottlieb is elected President of the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors and serves through 1945. The painting Pictograph #4 is included in Sidney Janis's book Abstract and Surrealist Art in America. The painting Home is included in the exhibition Abstract and Surrealist Art in the United States. The exhibition is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Art and travels to four other major art museums in the United States.

1945:  
67 Gallery, run by Howard Putzel, takes on representation of Gottlieb’s art. This is the artist’s first representation arrangement. Adolph Gottlieb, a solo exhibition of twenty-eight paintings and ten works on paper, is on view at 67 Gallery, New York, March 3–31.

A letter from Gottlieb to the art editor is published in the New York Times on July 22. Gottlieb’s letter begins, “The myth that so-called abstract painting is merely a preliminary to realistic painting still deludes many people, including some painters. Painting is the making of images.”

Following Howard Putzel’s death in August, Gottlieb signs a representation agreement with the Nierendorf Galleries, New York. A solo exhibition of 14 paintings, Pictographs of Adolph Gottlieb, is on view at the Nierendorf Galleries, New York, October 1–December 31.

1946:
Sam Kootz approaches Nierendorf, asking to take over representation of Gottlieb’s art. With Nierendorf’s encouragement, Gottlieb signs an agreement with the newly formed Samuel M. Kootz Gallery in New York. He participates in the forum, “Problems of Art and Artists Today and Tomorrow”, jointly organized by the Arts Students' League and the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. Gottlieb chairs a session on “The Function of Art Criticism” on April 23. 

In a review published in Newsweek (August 12, 1946), Gottlieb is quoted explaining that the subject of his paintings involves “something that relates to life and evokes and expresses some of the feelings we are concerned with today, such as the disintegration of the world.” He goes on to describe his use of the grid as “a device I use to kill space.” The Gottlieb painting The Couple (1946) is included in the exhibition Advancing American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 3–18. The Couple (1946) is also included in the exhibition International Exhibition of Modern Art at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, November 18–December 28.

1948:
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum purchases the collection of the late Karl Nierendorf which includes eleven paintings and gouaches by Gottlieb.

Gottlieb delivers a talk titled "Unintelligibility" as part of the forum, The Modern Artist Speaks at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on May 5. He initiates a new direction in his art with a group of paintings that he labels Unstill Lifes.

1949:
Gottlieb chairs a panel on “The Schism between Artist and Public” at the Art Students' League, March 24. Panelists include critics from the New York Times, Partisan Review, and Art News. He chairs a panel, “The Artists Speak,” at the Art Students' League, March 31. Panelists are Abraham Rattner, William Baziotes, Louis Harris, and Herbert Ferber.

In response to a request from Weldon Kees, Gottlieb assists in the organization of, and participates in, Forum 49, an exhibition of contemporary art and a series of symposia on avant-garde art, architecture, film, music, literature, and poetry. The concept is initiated by Weldon Kees and Fritz Bultmann and takes place at several venues in Provincetown, Massachusetts from July 3–September 1. Gottlieb helps curate the art exhibition and organizes and is part of the opening panel, “What is an Artist?,” and is chair of the closing panel, “French Art vs. U.S. Art Today”. Read more about Forum 49 here.

The painting Pictograph (1949) is included in the exhibition The Intrasubjectives, Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York, NY September 14–October 3. The exhibition includes most members of the “first generation” of Abstract Expressionist painters and is an early attempt to recognize common themes and practices among these artists. Gottlieb designs the cover of the exhibition flyer.

1951:
In reaction to the popularity of the “all-over” painting style, Gottlieb paints horizontal canvasses divided at an arbitrary horizon line into distinct, contrasting, upper and lower registers. In general, the upper register contains reductive imagery, while the lower register contains layers of images that extend to the edges of the register. Gottlieb calls these paintings Imaginary Landscapes. He continues to paint Imaginary Landscapes throughout the balance of his career.

Gottlieb accepts a commission from Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, New Jersey, to design a curtain for the sanctuary that contains the Torah scrolls. The final curtain, assembled by members of the congregation supervised by the artist, is nineteen feet high by eight feet wide. This is part of a large project headed by architect Percival Goodman to design and construct a modern synagogue. Along with the curtain by Gottlieb, works for different parts of the building are commissioned from artists Robert Motherwell and Herbert Ferber.

1952:
A solo exhibition, Adolph Gottlieb, consisting of fifteen paintings including Pictographs, Imaginary Landscapes, Unstill Lifes, and Labyrinths, is on view at the Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York, January 8–26. In a statement on the exhibition brochure, Kootz notes “the remarkable deviations he [Gottlieb] has made from the pictograph style…Here too are the ambivalent image, the enormous energy that creates such superb surface tensions, and the beautiful blossoming of color in the hands of an artist with great sensitivity.”

On July 28, Gottlieb signs a contract with the Park Avenue Synagogue, accepting a commission to design and oversee the fabrication and installation of a 1300-square-foot stained-glass façade for the Milton Steinberg House, a five-story structure to be built adjacent to the synagogue on East 87th Street in Manhattan. Read more about the Milton Steinberg House commission here.

1953:
Gottlieb resigns from Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. He designs and oversees the fabrication of the curtains and valence for the sanctuary containing the Torah scrolls, as well as tapestries for two floor-to-ceiling sliding panels, for Congregation Beth El in Springfield, Massachusetts. This is Gottlieb’s second project in collaboration with architect Percival Goodman.

On May 28, Gottlieb signs a contract with the firm Heinigke & Smith for the fabrication of the stained-glass panels for the Milton Steinberg House. In May, Gottlieb travels to Chicago as a juror for the annual Exhibition Momentum along with other jurors Richard Lippold, Richard Diebenkorn, and Ad Reinhardt.

1954:
A Retrospective Show of the Paintings of Adolph Gottlieb is organized by Clement Greenberg for the Bennington College Gallery, Bennington Vermont. In the statement he writes for the exhibition, Clement Greenberg notes that “Adolph Gottlieb is among the half-dozen artists responsible for the appearance since the early 1940s of the first body of American painting that can vie with, if not surpass, the best contemporary work in Europe.”

Gottlieb participates in the conference “Art Education and the Creative Process” sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He serves on a panel discussing “The Responsibility of Artist in Morals and Faith” along with Oliver O’Connor Barrett, Andre Girard, and Andre Racz at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY on December 4.

1955:
Gottlieb is commissioned to design a suite of stained-glass windows for the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn on May 4. This commission is fraught with misapprehensions, and while the windows are created according to the artist’s design and installed on September 15, Gottlieb's relationship with the synagogue deteriorates into a lawsuit which is eventually settled on January 24, 1956.

Three paintings, Sea and Tide, Labyrinth #3, and Seer are included in the exhibition The New Decade: 35 American Painters and Sculptors, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 11–August 7. The exhibition subsequently travels to four museums across the United States, ending May 15, 1956. Gottlieb’s statement “Painting Aims” is published in the exhibition catalogue.

Gottlieb begins teaching a class at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in the evening session. He will continue teaching this session into 1959.

1958:
The André Emmerich Gallery represents Gottlieb’s art as of January 1. A solo exhibition, Adolph Gottlieb: New Work, is on view at the André Emmerich Gallery, New York, January 2 – 31. Gottlieb’s mother, Elsie Berger Gottlieb, dies on January 13.

Six paintings are included in the exhibition The New American Painting, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to introduce European audiences to current American painting. The exhibition is seen in major museum venues beginning at the Kunsthalle, Basel, in April, 1958. It subsequently travels to Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and London. The final venue for the exhibition is the Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 28– September 8, 1959.

Gottlieb receives a request from Jean Larcade for a solo exhibition at Galerie Rive Droite in Paris, and they begin to organize the exhibition, which will take place the following year. He teaches a course in Advanced Drawing and Painting at UCLA in the summer session. While there, he is asked to help jury the City of Los Angeles Art Festival. In August, Gottlieb summers in East Hampton for the first time.

1961:
Gottlieb is one of forty-nine artists, curators, and critics who sign a letter to the New York Times censuring the Times’s art critic, John Canaday, for writings “not of a critic, but an agitator.” The letter is published in the New York Times on February 26.

Two paintings, Argosy and Pink Smash (1959), are included in the exhibition American Vanguard Painting, Galerie Würthle, Vienna, Austria, June 19–July 8. The exhibition travels to one additional venue in Austria, four venues in Yugoslavia, the United States Embassy in London, and the Hessische Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany, through May 13, 1962. The exhibition is credited by some historians as being “as important to some European painters, particularly the deep-feeling Yugoslavs, as the 1913 Armory show was to Americans.”

His painting Tan Over Black (1958) is awarded Third Prize at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture at the Carnegie Institute.

1962:
Two paintings, Black, Blue, Red (1956) and Counterpoise (1959), are included in the exhibition American Art Since 1950, Fine Arts Pavilion, World Fair, Seattle, April 21–October 21. Curator Martin Friedman stays at Gottlieb's East Hampton home and conducts interviews with the artist over the course of several days in August. Friedman is preparing a solo exhibition that will be presented at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 1963.

Irving Sandler interviews Gottlieb on the Casper Citron radio show for WRFM, New York. The interview is broadcast live on October 8. In mid-December, Gottlieb suffers a heart attack. He recuperates for several months in his East Hampton home.

In the fall, photographer Hans Namuth uses Gottlieb’s East Hampton studio, without the artist’s knowledge or permission, to stage and photograph an ad for Medaglia d’Oro coffee. Gottlieb is outraged on seeing the published ad and sues both Medaglia d’Oro and Hans Namuth. The lawsuit is settled the following year.

In late December Gottlieb writes to Sidney Janis ending the Gallery’s representation of Gottlieb’s art. Gottlieb cites the Gallery’s lack of plans to exhibit or promote his success at the São Paulo Bienal as his reason for leaving.

1964:
Gottlieb’s art is represented by the Marlborough Gallery as of January 1. A solo exhibition, Adolph Gottlieb, is on view at the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, February 18–March 3. The exhibition is a selection by Martin Friedman of paintings from the show at the São Paulo Bienal the previous year.

Gottlieb moves his New York City studio to the former studio of Sam Francis at 940 Broadway and 22nd Street in September. John Bauer, Director of the Whitney Museum, first approaches Gottlieb in December regarding a major retrospective exhibition. This leads to a series of discussions, joined by the Director of the Guggenheim Museum, resulting in a major retrospective exhibition on view at both museums simultaneously in 1968.  

1966:
Gottlieb is interviewed by Andrew Hudson, art critic for The Washington Post. Parts of the interview are published on Sunday, July 26, in a Washington Post article titled “Gottlieb Finds Today’s Shock-Proof Audience Dangerous". Gottlieb resumes printmaking. He creates several editions of serigraphs and lithographs that are published by Marlborough Graphics, New York. These are the first editions of prints he has created since 1949.

On October 10, a fire destroys the building that houses Gottlieb’s New York City studio, burning all its contents, including several paintings by Gottlieb and paintings by his friends, as well as much of his library. About eight months later, he will establish a new studio at 190 Bowery.

1967:
In January, Gottlieb joins the faculty at the Sarasota New College of Fine Arts, which includes Philip Guston, Conrad Marca-Relli, Jim Dine, James Brooks, and Syd Solomon. He conducts seminars with advanced painting students between January and March. Beginning in January and extending through June, Robert M. Doty, Associate Curator of the Whitney Museum, interviews Gottlieb in preparation for a major essay and retrospective exhibition scheduled to open in 1968. On February 14, he is appointed Painter-Member of the Art Commission of the City of New York.

Gottlieb establishes a new studio at 190 Bowery in Manhattan during May/June. He is interviewed by Jeanne Siegel for the “Great Artists in America” program of Pacifica Radio, broadcast on station WBAI on May 8. He serves as the artist-member of the Grand Rapids, Michigan, committee to commission a work of art for a public space. Gottlieb supports Alexander Calder, who is awarded the commission in August. This is the first commission awarded by the Public Art Program of the NEA. Calder’s sculpture is installed and dedicated in 1969. Gottlieb is interviewed by Dorothy Seckler for the Archives of American Art on October 25.

1968:
Adolph Gottlieb, a retrospective exhibition organized jointly by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, opens at both museums in New York City simultaneously on February 13, 1968, the first and only time this has occurred. The exhibition consists of 124 paintings from 1941–1967 and is on view at both museums from February 14–March 31, 1968. The exhibition later travels to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts. “A Dialogue with Adolph Gottlieb”, a conversation between the artist and Lawrence Alloway, takes place at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, on February 15. Read more about this major retrospective here.

The opening event for the Gottlieb retrospective exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery venue is the Corcoran Ball, held under the patronage of the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, on April 26. In May, a “Dialogue” between Andrew Hudson and Adolph Gottlieb takes place at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC. He is also interviewed by Jeanne Marshall for “Voice of America” in connection with the exhibition.

Gottlieb begins to make sculptures this year. He creates ten small maquettes in painted cardboard and twenty larger sculptures in painted steel or aluminum. He collaborates with Charles Slatkin to create his first tapestry, Burst (1968). The same year, Gottlieb collaborates with Gloria Ross, Edward Fields, and the Nazareth Workshop in Israel to create four additional tapestries. 

1973:
Gottlieb participates on a panel titled “Artists’ Club: The Makers’ Forum Revisited”. With moderator Raymond Hendler, the panel includes Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Philip Pavia, and Steve Wheeler, and takes place at the College Art Association, 61st Annual Meeting, New York, on January 26.

The Gottliebs travel to Phoenix, Arizona, where they intend to stay for two months beginning in February. On March 11, Gottlieb delivers a lecture and juries a student exhibition at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. On his return to East Hampton, Gottlieb begins work on a series of monotypes that continues until February 1974.

In the fall, Jeanne Siegel interviews Gottlieb in East Hampton. An edited version of the interview is published in the December issue of Art News, titled “Adolph Gottlieb at 70: I Would Like to Get Rid of the Idea That Art Is for Everybody”. He is interviewed on videotape by Hermine Freed and David Ross.

1974:
In September 1973, Gottlieb had ordered a large etching press that arrives at his studio in mid-February. He creates one monotype on this press that is his final work of art. He is admitted to the hospital that same week for treatment of emphysema.

Adolph Gottlieb dies on March 4 in New York City. His funeral is held on March 8, 1974. Three friends speak of the artist they knew: poet Leo Yamin, critic Harold Rosenberg, and historian Meyer Schapiro. Yamin, a friend since childhood, relates that Gottlieb “always wanted to be an artist. From the beginning, Gottlieb thought that art was not only different but better than other things.”

The Museum of Modern Art organizes a memorial exhibition Adolph Gottlieb: 1903-1974, that is on view from March 20 – April 15, 1974. In the wall text introducing the exhibition, William Rubin, Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, writes,

“In a generation that boasted many great painters, Gottlieb’s work was notable for its consistent quality — derived from the assurance with which he explored, over a period of almost 40 years, the unfolding of his own private vision…Until his death, Gottlieb continued to explore the possibilities of this balance of poetry and abstraction with a world of symbols he had made entirely on his own. He painted at the peak of his form to the end and had one of the longest and most undeviating careers in the history of American painting.”

1976:
Gottlieb left instructions in his will that a Foundation be created to “provide individual grants in aid to mature, creative painters and sculptors.” Following Gottlieb’s death in 1974, this paragraph becomes a mandate for the artist’s Estate to develop a program to provide direct financial assistance to individual artists. On October 26, 1976, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation begins to operate independently and becomes the first individual artists Foundation to provide direct, unrestricted financial assistance to visual artists.