About This Artwork
Adolph Gottlieb
American, 1903-1974
Pictographc. 1944
Etching on tan wove paper
202 x 251 mm (plate); 239 x 277 mm (sheet)
Joseph Brooks Fair Memorial Collection, 1984.100
Harvey 16; Gottlieb Foundation 4470P
Art © The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NYPrints and Drawings
Not on Display
In 1941 Adolph Gottlieb began a series of paintings, prints, and drawings that he called Pictographs. These represent the artist’s first efforts at reconciling elements of abstraction with an exploration of the unconscious drawn from Surrealism. His aim was to create a new, uniquely American expression that would bring significant content to abstraction. The ideas Gottlieb explored in his Pictographs were so varied and complex that the series occupied him for more than 10 years. This print was created in the course of Gottlieb’s intensive exploration of the theme.