The recent installation of Adolph Gottlieb’s sculpture WALL in The National Gallery on Washington DC gives us a chance to explore how the artist developed this sculpture, what was involved in its conservation, and its current installation. In this first part of a two-part newsletter, learn about how WALL was created.

For a short period between 1967 and 1969, Gottlieb experimented with translating his visual ideas into sculpture. He executed ten small, painted cardboard maquettes; a group of twelve painted steel or aluminum sculptures between 23 and 45 inches long; a few unique works in bronze, brass, and painted wood; and three outdoor sculptures of about 10 feet in length. One of these outdoor sculptures was WALL.

WALL began as a small maquette made of thin painted cardboard – the kind that dry-cleaners use to wrap shirts.

When he decided to increase its size and make a metal version, Gottlieb had to create a template for each of the elements of the sculpture. He made these by drawing them to scale on presentation board, cutting them out, and slotting the pieces to assemble the final sculpture. A local welder in East Hampton took each element, traced it on sheet steel and cut those pieces then welded them together to form the metal body of the sculpture which Gottlieb painted by hand.

The final and largest version of WALL measures 7 ½ feet high x 4 ½ feet wide x 11 feet long. It was fabricated by the firm Lippincott, Inc in North Haven, CT. The fabrication was expedited so the sculpture could be included in the landmark exhibition “New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940 – 1970” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

After the Metropolitan’s show closed, WALL was included in the exhibition “Gottlieb: Sculpture” at the University of Maryland Art Gallery. In 1971 it was returned to the Gottlieb’s East Hampton home where is was placed between the house and studio. WALL remained on this site for the next two decades, greeting visitors but suffering from exposure to sun, wind, sand, and salt air.

In the September 1969 issue of Art Now: New York, Gottlieb offered the following sentiments regarding his exploration of sculpture,

"A very knowledgeable person who saw my sculpture for the first time said 'It does not look like sculpture, it looks like your paintings in three dimensions.'  I liked this because it stated what I had in mind.

"About two years ago I decided to try working on a simple idea.  It was merely to have a thin vertical wall, as the sculptural equivalent of the picture plane in a painting.  I then intersected this with a few flat shapes at various angles.  This immediately opened up possibilities for a sculptural approach to images that had a personal meaning to me. 

"I enjoy doing sculpture of course, but the special bang I get is having the feeling that I am a young sculptor, just beginning, which is a nice feeling for an old painter like me."

Stay tuned for next month's newsletter, where we will be discussing the conservation of Wall by Robert Price at the National Gallery of Art.

Art ©Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by ARS, NY, NY