Non-Objective I
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
In 1920, Piet Mondrian reached his artistic maturity with a style that would redefine the very meaning of art. Thin black lines separating rectangular forms, predominantly white but with scarce bursts of primary colours. It was the realisation of Mondrain’s vision for “pure abstract art… completely emancipated, free of naturalistic appearances’, and was, for many, the pinnacle of abstraction. Yet, 40 odd years later, the American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein paints a Mondrian and, while he changes almost nothing, completely redefines the very nature of abstraction. Lichtenstein’s paints a Mondrian because Mondrian’s signature style was so defined, had such a unique and clear language, that it was able to be generically reproduced. And all that Lichtenstein changes is the addition of two panels of Ben-Day dots as a stand in for solid colour. He abstracts that which is reduced to its most simple, turns a solid block into repetitive disks, removing Mondrian’s artistic conclusion even further away from the naturalistic appearance it was escaping. For all that, the piece works on another, more disquieting level. By co-opting and adapting a style of total abstraction, Lichtenstein undoes the very goal it set out to seek. The piece is no longer abstract, instead it is a representational, photo-realist recreation of an object. The work has been retained, it’s visual success has made it a style, and so it has lost its freedom for it represents above all itself.
Roy Lichtenstein
ROY LICHTENSTEIN, 1964. OIL AND MAGMA ON CANVAS.
In 1920, Piet Mondrian reached his artistic maturity with a style that would redefine the very meaning of art. Thin black lines separating rectangular forms, predominantly white but with scarce bursts of primary colours. It was the realisation of Mondrain’s vision for “pure abstract art… completely emancipated, free of naturalistic appearances’, and was, for many, the pinnacle of abstraction. Yet, 40 odd years later, the American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein paints a Mondrian and, while he changes almost nothing, completely redefines the very nature of abstraction. Lichtenstein’s paints a Mondrian because Mondrian’s signature style was so defined, had such a unique and clear language, that it was able to be generically reproduced. And all that Lichtenstein changes is the addition of two panels of Ben-Day dots as a stand in for solid colour. He abstracts that which is reduced to its most simple, turns a solid block into repetitive disks, removing Mondrian’s artistic conclusion even further away from the naturalistic appearance it was escaping. For all that, the piece works on another, more disquieting level. By co-opting and adapting a style of total abstraction, Lichtenstein undoes the very goal it set out to seek. The piece is no longer abstract, instead it is a representational, photo-realist recreation of an object. The work has been retained, it’s visual success has made it a style, and so it has lost its freedom for it represents above all itself.
Orchestra
MAN RAY
For an exhibition in 1917, Man Ray made a series of ten collages that he framed and installed on a rotating pole, moveable by the audience, and called ‘Revolving Doors’. The works are geometric abstractions, bright and playful in nature they combine machine like, rigid forms with a loose human touch that brings a musicality to their composition. The works were not well received on their debut, too colourful for those collectors used to the muted palettes of Cubism and lyrical, serious abstraction. The original collages and their revolving stand were destroyed but years later, Ray reproduced the works as a series of prints, such as the one here. Viewed together, they tell a cohesive story of movement and a hopeful modernity but alone, we are able to focus on the formal components. The work is proto-color theory, a study in shades and their interactions, but it also touches on the same themes that Ray returned to throughout his career, a visual depiction of music. The sensual shape of instruments are reduced into geometric purity and the work can almost be heard through the interplay of shape and color.
Man Ray
MAN RAY, c.1916. POCHOIR PRINT WITH INK ON PAPER.
For an exhibition in 1917, Man Ray made a series of ten collages that he framed and installed on a rotating pole, moveable by the audience, and called ‘Revolving Doors’. The works are geometric abstractions, bright and playful in nature they combine machine like, rigid forms with a loose human touch that brings a musicality to their composition. The works were not well received on their debut, too colourful for those collectors used to the muted palettes of Cubism and lyrical, serious abstraction. The original collages and their revolving stand were destroyed but years later, Ray reproduced the works as a series of prints, such as the one here. Viewed together, they tell a cohesive story of movement and a hopeful modernity but alone, we are able to focus on the formal components. The work is proto-color theory, a study in shades and their interactions, but it also touches on the same themes that Ray returned to throughout his career, a visual depiction of music. The sensual shape of instruments are reduced into geometric purity and the work can almost be heard through the interplay of shape and color.
The Return of the Prodigal Son
REMBRANDT
Approaching death, the greatest painter of his age leaves us with a final word of hope for forgiveness and salvation. A son, wretched and wasteful has spent the fortune his father gave him on frivolity and decadence and returns home begging for a lowly position to redeem himself, but is instead welcomed in open arms and embraced not for his sins but his penitence. This is the story that Rembrandt - master painter, portraitist and hero of the Dutch golden age - depicts as amongst the final works before he passes away and it is hard not to read it as a plea for how he will be treated in the afterlife. He does not represent it with biblical accuracy, but brings in unknown characters: a women, barely visible, most likely his mother and a seated figure representing a tax collector and his own ambivalence at the wealth he has built. Rembrandt is both the young son, coming home ashamed, and the older son, dissatisfied with the lack of reward for his loyalty in contrast to his brother. Both need salvation, both hope to come home and both, as Rembrandt, long for the embrace of a loving father to forgive them for the life they have led.
Rembrandt
REMBRANDT, c.1668. OIL ON CANVAS.
Approaching death, the greatest painter of his age leaves us with a final word of hope for forgiveness and salvation. A son, wretched and wasteful has spent the fortune his father gave him on frivolity and decadence and returns home begging for a lowly position to redeem himself, but is instead welcomed in open arms and embraced not for his sins but his penitence. This is the story that Rembrandt - master painter, portraitist and hero of the Dutch golden age - depicts as amongst the final works before he passes away and it is hard not to read it as a plea for how he will be treated in the afterlife. He does not represent it with biblical accuracy, but brings in unknown characters: a women, barely visible, most likely his mother and a seated figure representing a tax collector and his own ambivalence at the wealth he has built. Rembrandt is both the young son, coming home ashamed, and the older son, dissatisfied with the lack of reward for his loyalty in contrast to his brother. Both need salvation, both hope to come home and both, as Rembrandt, long for the embrace of a loving father to forgive them for the life they have led.
Study of a Man in Hat and Serapé
EDWARD HOPPPER
Most known for his poignant vignettes of quiet moments amongst urbanity, the truest theme of Edward Hopper’s life was not the city, or the man, but America itself. He was a deeply native painter, one who did not want to discuss his art or himself but simply strove to capture the essence of the country into his canvases. His work is almost puritanical, balancing a deep melancholy with a realists eye that searches for truth in the external world, not within. His paintings reveal little of his person, so refined and considered are they, that it is in his study and sketches, such as this, that we can find the man in the brushstrokes. Mostly likely painted as a very young man, still in his twenties, there is a naivety to the drawings that hide a sophisticated composition. In few strokes, he captures a story; a man glancing back as he prepares for the road ahead, a glimmer of trepidation in his face and an unwillingness to reveal himself to the viewer. Yet, for all this, the colouring is playful, the strokes loose and undefined that bring a joy to the scene. This, perhaps, was Hopper’s genius - an ability to marry to mysterious, the melancholy, and the happy in one single vignette that spoke to a country through a single subject.
Edward Hopper
EDWARD HOPPER, DATE UNKNOWN. COLOURED PENCIL AND GRAPHITE ON PAPER.
Most known for his poignant vignettes of quiet moments amongst urbanity, the truest theme of Edward Hopper’s life was not the city, or the man, but America itself. He was a deeply native painter, one who did not want to discuss his art or himself but simply strove to capture the essence of the country into his canvases. His work is almost puritanical, balancing a deep melancholy with a realists eye that searches for truth in the external world, not within. His paintings reveal little of his person, so refined and considered are they, that it is in his study and sketches, such as this, that we can find the man in the brushstrokes. Mostly likely painted as a very young man, still in his twenties, there is a naivety to the drawings that hide a sophisticated composition. In few strokes, he captures a story; a man glancing back as he prepares for the road ahead, a glimmer of trepidation in his face and an unwillingness to reveal himself to the viewer. Yet, for all this, the colouring is playful, the strokes loose and undefined that bring a joy to the scene. This, perhaps, was Hopper’s genius - an ability to marry to mysterious, the melancholy, and the happy in one single vignette that spoke to a country through a single subject.
The Talisman
PAUL SÉRUSIER
Armed with only a letter of introduction from Paul Gaugin, a young 24 year old artist left Paris, heading west towards an artist commune on the Brittany coast. Paul Sérusier was determined to reconnect with nature having completed his studies in the capital, and began to paint landscapes at Port-Aven. On a walk through the idyllic countryside with Gaugin, the older artist asked Sérusier, ‘"How do you see these trees? They're yellow. So, put some yellow. This shadow, it's rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine. Those red leaves? Put vermillion.” He listened, and this, the resulting work, changed the course of art history. Nature was represented not for its likeness but for its visual sensation, reduced to flat planes and simple colours. Tt was a conclusion to the direction the Impressionists and the first work of the ‘Nabis’, a name taken from the Hebrew word for ‘Prophets’. The name ‘The Talisman’ was given to the painting by the group, it representing the entire movement into modernity and becoming a work of holy importance.
Paul Sérusier
PAUL SÉRUSIER, 1888. OIL ON WOOD.
Armed with only a letter of introduction from Paul Gaugin, a young 24 year old artist left Paris, heading west towards an artist commune on the Brittany coast. Paul Sérusier was determined to reconnect with nature having completed his studies in the capital, and began to paint landscapes at Port-Aven. On a walk through the idyllic countryside with Gaugin, the older artist asked Sérusier, ‘"How do you see these trees? They're yellow. So, put some yellow. This shadow, it's rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine. Those red leaves? Put vermillion.” He listened, and this, the resulting work, changed the course of art history. Nature was represented not for its likeness but for its visual sensation, reduced to flat planes and simple colours. Tt was a conclusion to the direction the Impressionists and the first work of the ‘Nabis’, a name taken from the Hebrew word for ‘Prophets’. The name ‘The Talisman’ was given to the painting by the group, it representing the entire movement into modernity and becoming a work of holy importance.
Untitled (You Are A Very Special Person)
BARBARA KRUGER
Working as a magazine designer, Barbara Kruger came to innately understand the linguistic, typographic and visual conventions of consumerism. Single line slogans that sold disposable products week after week, images of airbrushed beauty that promoted shame, and direct instructions to the reader that their life could be better if only they did this, bought that, or changed something in themselves. A sort of meta-commentary on consumerism had been embedded in the art world since the advent of Pop, but Kruger took it beyond simple appropriation or decontextualisation. Her work combines found imagery with cut up phrases, often adulterated from their original form, to create images of a disquieting juxtaposition. The pieces feel immediately, viscerally familiar that to observe them is to question our own comfort with a visual language that wants something from us. Kruger makes us stop and question the inundation of messaging in our daily lives, and from a place of deep understanding forces a reflection on the power of words and images.
Barbara Kruger
BARBARA KRUGER, 1995. PHOTOGRAPHIC SILKSCREEN ON VINYL.
Working as a magazine designer, Barbara Kruger came to innately understand the linguistic, typographic and visual conventions of consumerism. Single line slogans that sold disposable products week after week, images of airbrushed beauty that promoted shame, and direct instructions to the reader that their life could be better if only they did this, bought that, or changed something in themselves. A sort of meta-commentary on consumerism had been embedded in the art world since the advent of Pop, but Kruger took it beyond simple appropriation or decontextualisation. Her work combines found imagery with cut up phrases, often adulterated from their original form, to create images of a disquieting juxtaposition. The pieces feel immediately, viscerally familiar that to observe them is to question our own comfort with a visual language that wants something from us. Kruger makes us stop and question the inundation of messaging in our daily lives, and from a place of deep understanding forces a reflection on the power of words and images.
To Theo Van Gogh
KNUD MERRILD
In turn of the century Denmark, Merrild began his career as an apprentice house painter. The monotony of the work was meditative, and the techniques of paint mixing and application formed the basis of his most famous series of works. Yet, for all the influence his ‘Flux’ paintings had on 20th century abstract expressionism, Merrild worked as a house painter on occasion throughout his life, it serving as a financial bedrock in eras of low income. The ‘Flux’ paintings, such as the one here, were made by diluting oil paints into viscous, flowable forms, and dripping them onto the canvas in rhythmic motion to create post-surreal works that serve as a collaboration between Merrild and chance itself. Moving to America in the early 1920s, he became part of a group of writers that included D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Aldous Huxley, who all saw in the experimental Dane a kindred spirit who expressed his ideas of post-modernity through abstract forms rather than words.
Knud Merrild
KNUD MERRILD, 1951. OIL ON MASONITE.
In turn of the century Denmark, Merrild began his career as an apprentice house painter. The monotony of the work was meditative, and the techniques of paint mixing and application formed the basis of his most famous series of works. Yet, for all the influence his ‘Flux’ paintings had on 20th century abstract expressionism, Merrild worked as a house painter on occasion throughout his life, it serving as a financial bedrock in eras of low income. The ‘Flux’ paintings, such as the one here, were made by diluting oil paints into viscous, flowable forms, and dripping them onto the canvas in rhythmic motion to create post-surreal works that serve as a collaboration between Merrild and chance itself. Moving to America in the early 1920s, he became part of a group of writers that included D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Aldous Huxley, who all saw in the experimental Dane a kindred spirit who expressed his ideas of post-modernity through abstract forms rather than words.
Praying Hands
ALBRECHT DÜRER
Two hands gently pressed together in prayer, sketched as either preparation or posterity, have travelled the world over half a millennia. They have ended up on the tombstone of Andy Warhol, tattooed on thousands of bodies, recreated in endless variation and reproduced on every medium imaginable. Albrecht Dürer’s humble drawing has become, since it was created in the early 1500s, one of the most significant and iconic images of faith in the western world. It is because of this that various myths and stories as to its origin have sprung up over the years, each trying to find some contextual poetry in its creation that justifies its fame and acclaim. Yet the truth is more simple; the hands were painted as either a study for, or a record of, a detail in Dürer’s Heller Altarpiece. Immaculately rendered on precious blue paper there is no doubt Dürer was proud of the work, but their beauty does not come from a grand backstory or a tragic tale, simply from the devotion of an artist trying to capture the flesh and bones of faith in ink and paper.
Albrecht Dürer
ALBRECHT DÜRER, c.1508. PEN-AND-INK ON PAPER.
Two hands gently pressed together in prayer, sketched as either preparation or posterity, have travelled the world over half a millennia. They have ended up on the tombstone of Andy Warhol, tattooed on thousands of bodies, recreated in endless variation and reproduced on every medium imaginable. Albrecht Dürer’s humble drawing has become, since it was created in the early 1500s, one of the most significant and iconic images of faith in the western world. It is because of this that various myths and stories as to its origin have sprung up over the years, each trying to find some contextual poetry in its creation that justifies its fame and acclaim. Yet the truth is more simple; the hands were painted as either a study for, or a record of, a detail in Dürer’s Heller Altarpiece. Immaculately rendered on precious blue paper there is no doubt Dürer was proud of the work, but their beauty does not come from a grand backstory or a tragic tale, simply from the devotion of an artist trying to capture the flesh and bones of faith in ink and paper.
Still Life with Carafe, Bottle, and Guitar
AMÉDÉÉ OZENFANT
Art consists in the conception before anything else, and technique is merely a tool at the service of conception. These are two of the tenets of Purism, a movement founded in rebellion to the perceived ornamentation of Cubism by Ozenfant and, perhaps more significantly, Le Corbusier. In the war-torn France of 1918, ravaged by the First World War, Purism emerged as a way to bring back order. Cubism had become the de-facto school of Art and had strayed from it’s earliest intentions to become romantic and decorative, with an emphasis on detail that detracted from it’s radical, abstract origins. With Purism, Ozenfant and Corbusier focused on the essence of objects, free from details or decoration the forms are allowed to stand alone and find beauty in the simplicity of the world around us. It was a way to return to nature, without copying it, and while their unison ended, both Ozenfant and Corbusier held these ideas with them for the rest of their lives, and Le Corbusier used them to create the modern language of design and architecture.
Amédéé Ozenfant
AMÉDÉÉ OZENFANT, 1919. OIL ON CANVAS.
Art consists in the conception before anything else, and technique is merely a tool at the service of conception. These are two of the tenets of Purism, a movement founded in rebellion to the perceived ornamentation of Cubism by Ozenfant and, perhaps more significantly, Le Corbusier. In the war-torn France of 1918, ravaged by the First World War, Purism emerged as a way to bring back order. Cubism had become the de-facto school of Art and had strayed from it’s earliest intentions to become romantic and decorative, with an emphasis on detail that detracted from it’s radical, abstract origins. With Purism, Ozenfant and Corbusier focused on the essence of objects, free from details or decoration the forms are allowed to stand alone and find beauty in the simplicity of the world around us. It was a way to return to nature, without copying it, and while their unison ended, both Ozenfant and Corbusier held these ideas with them for the rest of their lives, and Le Corbusier used them to create the modern language of design and architecture.
Cows in Pasture
YASUO KUNIYOSHI
Born in a Year of the Cow, according the the Japanese calendar, it seemed obvious to Kuniyoshi that he would feel a kinship to these creatures. Invited to an art colony in Maine for the summer of 1920, surrounded by agricultural land and pastoral fields of grazing bovine, his paintings ‘usually began with cows’. Yet despite the ample opportunity, Kuniyoshi worked in the Japanese tradition of painting from memory, not from life. His subjects were a combination of visual recollection and idealistic imagination, resulting in subjects that were the ideals of their being, the platonic perfection of cows. This was combined with an influence of Cubism from the West that resulted in angular, geometric lines and reductions, producing images that bridged a cultural gap. Over the 1920s, he painted more than 60 works with cows as the central subjects. There is something in these works that speaks to the uniquely universal experience of agricultural, while still feeling reminiscent of deeply American way of life.
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
YASUO KUNIYOSHI, 1923. OIL ON CANVAS.
Born in a Year of the Cow, according the the Japanese calendar, it seemed obvious to Kuniyoshi that he would feel a kinship to these creatures. Invited to an art colony in Maine for the summer of 1920, surrounded by agricultural land and pastoral fields of grazing bovine, his paintings ‘usually began with cows’. Yet despite the ample opportunity, Kuniyoshi worked in the Japanese tradition of painting from memory, not from life. His subjects were a combination of visual recollection and idealistic imagination, resulting in subjects that were the ideals of their being, the platonic perfection of cows. This was combined with an influence of Cubism from the West that resulted in angular, geometric lines and reductions, producing images that bridged a cultural gap. Over the 1920s, he painted more than 60 works with cows as the central subjects. There is something in these works that speaks to the uniquely universal experience of agricultural, while still feeling reminiscent of deeply American way of life.
Sunlight
MAX PECHSTEIN
The ‘Die Brücke’ artists prided themselves on their crudeness. Like their French counterparts the Fauves, they rejected both total abstraction and realist depiction, disliking Impressionism’s focus on aesthetic beauty and the neutered, domestic subjects of Pointillism. They were the proton-expressionists, informed by primitive art and the raw expression of emotion, in subject matter explicit and erotic charged. Their very name ‘Die Brücke’, translates to ‘The Bridge’, an acknowledgement the group made that they were to be a bridge to the art of the future, a self fulfilling prophecy that ensured both their importance and their brief life. It was in the early days of this creatively enthused rebellion that a young Max Pechstein joined the group, and became the only artist with formal training to do so. This led, unsurprisingly, to a fractious relationship and resentment between the members, especially as Pechstein gained more commercial success than the others. He was expelled in 1912, and became a darling of the art world until he was vilified as a degenerate by the Nazi’s and his art removed from all institutions. His career revived after the war and Pechstein continued to paint and create to acclaim and through it all, his style always spoke to the Die Brückes. A member for only 6 years in a more than 50 year career but there was not a brushstroke painted that wasn’t informed by the wild philosophies of his youthful rebellion.
Max Pechstein
MAX PECHSTEIN, 1921. OIL ON CANVAS.
The ‘Die Brücke’ artists prided themselves on their crudeness. Like their French counterparts the Fauves, they rejected both total abstraction and realist depiction, disliking Impressionism’s focus on aesthetic beauty and the neutered, domestic subjects of Pointillism. They were the proton-expressionists, informed by primitive art and the raw expression of emotion, in subject matter explicit and erotic charged. Their very name ‘Die Brücke’ translates to ‘The Bridge’, a self fulfilling prophecy that ensured both their importance and brief life. It was in the early days of this creatively enthused rebellion that a young Max Pechstein joined the group, and became the only artist with formal training to do so. This led, unsurprisingly, to a fractious relationship and resentment between the members, especially as Pechstein gained more commercial success. He was expelled in 1912, and became a darling of the art world until he was vilified as a degenerate by the Nazi’s and his art removed from all institutions. His career revived after the war and Pechstein continued working to acclaim but through it all, his style always spoke to Die Brückes. A member for only 6 years in his more than 50 year career, but there was not a brushstroke painted that wasn’t informed by the wild philosophies of his youthful rebellion.
The Club
JEAN BÉRAUD
Béraud became so immersed in the city of Paris that he came to represent the very pinnacle of metropolitan life. Charming, eloquent and exquisitely dressed, after moving to the city from his native Russia and abandoning his law degree, the doors of the capital opened for him. He found himself at the centre of the glittering social scene and was calculated in rising through the ranks to become the most talked about figure in contemporary art. His paintings were the height of modernity in both style and subject, depicting everyday urban life on the streets, the seedy underbelly of the city, and the private rooms of high society, not accessible to most Parisians. This confluence of high and low society was testament to how deeply Béraud understood Paris in all of its variation, and the neutral precision of his depictions did not pass judgement against any facet of life. Béraud’s reputation has waned since his death, but the work of the man considered the most modern of artists still retains an urgency when viewed today, more than a century after its conception.
Jean Béraud
JEAN BÉRAUD, 1911. OIL ON CANVAS.
Béraud became so immersed in the city of Paris that he came to represent the very pinnacle of metropolitan life. Charming, eloquent and exquisitely dressed, after moving to the city from his native Russia and abandoning his law degree, the doors of the capital opened for him. He found himself at the centre of the glittering social scene and was calculated in rising through the ranks to become the most talked about figure in contemporary art. His paintings were the height of modernity in both style and subject, depicting everyday urban life on the streets, the seedy underbelly of the city, and the private rooms of high society, not accessible to most Parisians. This confluence of high and low society was testament to how deeply Béraud understood Paris in all of its variation, and the neutral precision of his depictions did not pass judgement against any facet of life. Béraud’s reputation has waned since his death, but the work of the man considered the most modern of artists still retains an urgency when viewed today, more than a century after its conception.
Rouen Cathedral, Morning Fog
CLAUDE MONET
Over two years, Monet painted the same facade of the Rouen Cathedral thirty different times. Viewed in their totality, these paintings capture the building from dawn to dusk, examining the changing shape of the architecture as the sun moves across it. This type of painting was not uncommon for Monet; he obsessively documented scenes over and over, trying to capture the extreme present, and would change canvases as the sun moved across the sky. His loyalty was to light and he strove to capture it as accurately as possible. Yet, his work with the Rouen Cathedral feels different, for even in it’s most clear there is an ethereality to it - the grand, circular window that seems to open like a portal into another world regardless of how the sun falls. It epitomises the relationship between painting and architecture at its best, an artist’s eye that can see in a building the infinity of its variation, can interpret the work of one craftsman to another. It forces us to refocus, not just on the Rouen Cathedral and Monet’s depictions, but on the buildings around us, and the ease at which they transform across the day.
Claude Monet
CLAUDE MONET, 1894. OIL ON CANVAS.
Over two years, Monet painted the same facade of the Rouen Cathedral thirty different times. Viewed in their totality, these paintings capture the building from dawn to dusk, examining the changing shape of the architecture as the sun moves across it. This type of painting was not uncommon for Monet; he obsessively documented scenes over and over, trying to capture the extreme present, and would change canvases as the sun moved across the sky. His loyalty was to light and he strove to capture it as accurately as possible. Yet, his work with the Rouen Cathedral feels different, for even in it’s most clear there is an ethereality to it - the grand, circular window that seems to open like a portal into another world regardless of how the sun falls. It epitomises the relationship between painting and architecture at its best, an artist’s eye that can see in a building the infinity of its variation, can interpret the work of one craftsman to another. It forces us to refocus, not just on the Rouen Cathedral and Monet’s depictions, but on the buildings around us, and the ease at which they transform across the day.
Totem
ADOLPH GOTTLIEB
Different times call for different images, so thought Adolph Gottlieb, and in the tumultuous times during and after the Second World War, the images that were need were Pictographs. Developed by Gottlieb as a way to unify his disparate interests in surrealism, geometric abstraction and native art from across the Americas, they serve as readable images that transform symbols into meaning. They are a way to translate the complications, neurosis, and chaos of modernity into something accessible to the subconscious, cutting through the noise of a difficult world with abstraction. Yet, abstraction was not a word Gottlieb liked to use, he said that “to my mind certain so-called abstraction is not abstraction at all. On the contrary, it is the realism of our time.” The symbols, neatly divided into grids, becomes figures, faces, creatures of the recesses of our mind that seem to communicate wordlessly of a world within us.
Adolph Gottlieb
ADOLPH GOTTLIEB, 1947. OIL ON CANVAS.
“The role of the artist has, of course, always been that of image maker”, said Adolph Gottlieb, “[But] different times require different images”. Gottlieb lived through many different times; born in 1903, he left school at 17 and set off for Europe to learn art on the streets of Paris. Through wars, artistic movements, upheavals and changes, Gottlieb adapted his images to reflect to times and then, in 1957, his oeuvre apexed with the start of the Blast Series, a series of works that would continue until his death in 1974. Each ‘Blast Work’ follows the same format, a circular, more ordered form on the top half of the canvas and the bottom half is inhabited by frenetic, chaotic, distressed markings of pure energy. Gottlieb saw these works as the conclusion to the central idea he had been working on throughout his life. Namely, that opposites necessarily exist together. Light exists only with dark, calm only chaos and order only with disorder – these oppositional concepts are neither exclusive nor complimentary, instead they are requisites for the others existence.
Landscape of La Gardie, near Calihau
ACHILLE LAUGÉ
A peasant boy from a small town, Laugé struggled to make it as an artist in the capital city. Moving to Paris to paint at 21 while he worked in a pharmacy to cover the bills, he was surrounded by a scene of artists changing the culture around them, but doing so from a position of some societal power. He, on the other hand, found himself isolated and without connections in the city, and when his work was exhibited in significant exhibitions alongside Bonnard, Denis, Toulouse-Lautrec and others, it was derided for it’s attempts to ‘impress’. Class prejudice seemed to surround him, and even in his artworks, inspired by the pointillist and post-impressionist styles of the day, viewers sensed this struggle for upward mobility. When his father died, Laugé returned home to the small town he was born, Caligula. He built a modest house for him and his family, and prepared himself for a simple, austere life. Yet it was back in these humble beginnings that inspiration struck anew. He constructed a studio within a horse-drawn cart and travelled the region, painting the landscapes in oil and pastel before returning to the work in his home studio. He style simplified, in match with his surroundings, and the very thing he had ran away from brought him mastery and success.
Achille Laugé
ACHILLE LAUGÉ, 1902. OIL ON CANVAS.
A peasant boy from a small town, Laugé struggled to make it as an artist in the capital city. Moving to Paris to paint at 21 while he worked in a pharmacy to cover the bills, he was surrounded by a scene of artists changing the culture around them, but doing so from a position of some societal power. He, on the other hand, found himself isolated and without connections in the city, and when his work was exhibited in significant exhibitions alongside Bonnard, Denis, Toulouse-Lautrec and others, it was derided for it’s attempts to ‘impress’. Class prejudice seemed to surround him, and even in his artworks, inspired by the pointillist and post-impressionist styles of the day, viewers sensed this struggle for upward mobility. When his father died, Laugé returned home to the small town he was born, Caligula. He built a modest house for him and his family, and prepared himself for a simple, austere life. Yet it was back in these humble beginnings that inspiration struck anew. He constructed a studio within a horse-drawn cart and travelled the region, painting the landscapes in oil and pastel before returning to the work in his home studio. He style simplified, in match with his surroundings, and the very thing he had ran away from brought him mastery and success.
Snowy Landscape
CUNO AMIET
A monumental canvas of more than four square metres has the majority of its bulk dedicated to the infinitesimal small variations of white on a snowy day. The figure, a long skier who traverses the length of the artwork in a desperate attempt to reach its end, is comically small with the bulk of colour behind dwarfing him. The work is deeply unusual, all the more so for the fact it was painted at the turn of the century. The modern viewer, after a near century of artists such as Rauschenberg, Malevich, Ryman and others creating all white canvases, may be used to the starkness of this work, but Amiet predates even the earliest of these by some fifteen years. The work is presented as a landscape, but it becomes about the insignificance of man in the face of nature, the perseverance of the human spirit and, perhaps most simply, of the effect of colour. Amiet never achieved major success in his life, and has remained undeservedly unknown today. His work was, perhaps, so ahead of his time, so singular that he was destined to remain of the fringe of a world he anticipated before so many others.
Cuno Amiet
CUNO AMIET, 1904. OIL ON CANVAS.
A monumental canvas of more than four square metres has the majority of its bulk dedicated to the infinitesimal small variations of white on a snowy day. The figure, a long skier who traverses the length of the artwork in a desperate attempt to reach its end, is comically small with the bulk of colour behind dwarfing him. The work is deeply unusual, all the more so for the fact it was painted at the turn of the century. The modern viewer, after a near century of artists such as Rauschenberg, Malevich, Ryman and others creating all white canvases, may be used to the starkness of this work, but Amiet predates even the earliest of these by some fifteen years. The work is presented as a landscape, but it becomes about the insignificance of man in the face of nature, the perseverance of the human spirit and, perhaps most simply, of the effect of colour. Amiet never achieved major success in his life, and has remained undeservedly unknown today. His work was, perhaps, so ahead of his time, so singular that he was destined to remain of the fringe of a world he anticipated before so many others.
Dancing Soldiers
MIKHAIL LARIONOV
As one moves further from the epicentre of a movement, the ideas begin to distort. Concepts are reinterpreted in a game of geographic Chinese whispers and stylistic elements merge with local traditions into something altogether different. Such is the case with Mikhail Larionov’s work, painted in Russia but indebted to and inspired by the fauvist movement happening simultaneously in Paris. Combining a bright palette and loose dimensionality of the French avant-garde with the icon paintings of Russian history and traditional styles of woodcut illustration, the work is able to speak across time and place. Larionov named his style Neo-Primitivism, a combination of the old and the new that saw the past not as a distant land but a living collaborator in the present. Larionov would eventually leave Russia to live in Paris where he ingratiated himself to the very artists who’s style he had made his own, and there his paintings became more technically refined. Yet it is his early work, while still in his native land, that stands above, the gentle naivety combines with a contemporary understanding and art historical knowledge to create playful works of poignancy.
Mikhail Larionov
MIKHAIL LARIONOV, 1909. OIL ON CANVAS.
As one moves further from the epicentre of a movement, the ideas begin to distort. Concepts are reinterpreted in a game of geographic Chinese whispers and stylistic elements merge with local traditions into something altogether different. Such is the case with Mikhail Larionov’s work, painted in Russia but indebted to and inspired by the fauvist movement happening simultaneously in Paris. Combining a bright palette and loose dimensionality of the French avant-garde with the icon paintings of Russian history and traditional styles of woodcut illustration, the work is able to speak across time and place. Larionov named his style Neo-Primitivism, a combination of the old and the new that saw the past not as a distant land but a living collaborator in the present. Larionov would eventually leave Russia to live in Paris where he ingratiated himself to the very artists who’s style he had made his own, and there his paintings became more technically refined. Yet it is his early work, while still in his native land, that stands above, the gentle naivety combines with a contemporary understanding and art historical knowledge to create playful works of poignancy.
Vertigo of the Hero
ANDRÉ MASSON
In a long life, Masson made time for everything. A pioneering surrealist, he was the most willing adopter of automatism, or the process of automatic drawing where the hand is allowed to run unchained on the canvas with no conscious decisions affecting its movement. He pushed these ideas further still, scattering sand or mud onto a surface and letting the organic shapes it feel in guide the direction of his work. A young rebel of Surrealism, he plumbed the depths of his subconscious until he, reaching the bottom, sought out structure once again. By the end of the war, having survived active duty and sharing a studio with Joan Míro, he abandoned the Surrealists and his work became structured, often depicting scenes of violence or eroticism. Condemned by obscenity laws under Nazi rule, he fled to America where he became a fatherly figure to the burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement, until he returned to France to paint landscapes. In the evening of his life, he returned to a less disciplined form, retaining parts of all he had learned to produce moving, erotic works of the subconscious mind.
André Masson
ANDRÉ MASSON, 1974. PASTEL ON PAPER.
In a long life, Masson made time for everything. A pioneering surrealist, he was the most willing adopter of automatism, or the process of automatic drawing where the hand is allowed to run unchained on the canvas with no conscious decisions affecting its movement. He pushed these ideas further still, scattering sand or mud onto a surface and letting the organic shapes it feel in guide the direction of his work. A young rebel of Surrealism, he plumbed the depths of his subconscious until he, reaching the bottom, sought out structure once again. By the end of the war, having survived active duty and sharing a studio with Joan Míro, he abandoned the Surrealists and his work became structured, often depicting scenes of violence or eroticism. Condemned by obscenity laws under Nazi rule, he fled to America where he became a fatherly figure to the burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement, until he returned to France to paint landscapes. In the evening of his life, he returned to a less disciplined form, retaining parts of all he had learned to produce moving, erotic works of the subconscious mind.
Le Christ Vert
MAURICE DENIS
As a child, Maurice Denis had only two passions – religion and art. It seemed clear to him that his path was to combine the two, to follow in the footsteps of the great Renaissance monk-cum-artist Fra Angelo and make religious art that elevated the holy in the minds of men. Yet, before this work was painted he was in a period of deep questioning, having co-founded the Nabi group the same year he found himself surrounded by the decadence and debauchery of the artists studio, and reluctantly drawn to it. Art and religion seemed, for the first time in his life, at odds with each other and it was only in the process of creating this work, and others in the series, that he unified the Cloister and the Studio in his mind. “I believe”, he said, “that art must sanctify nature; I believe that vision without the Spirt is vain; and it is the mission of the aesthete to erect beautiful things into immutable icons”.
Maurice Denis
MAURICE DENIS, 1890. OIL ON CANVAS.
As a child, Maurice Denis had only two passions – religion and art. It seemed clear to him that his path was to combine the two, to follow in the footsteps of the great Renaissance monk-cum-artist Fra Angelo and make religious art that elevated the holy in the minds of men. Yet, before this work was painted he was in a period of deep questioning, having co-founded the Nabi group the same year he found himself surrounded by the decadence and debauchery of the artists studio, and reluctantly drawn to it. Art and religion seemed, for the first time in his life, at odds with each other and it was only in the process of creating this work, and others in the series, that he unified the Cloister and the Studio in his mind. “I believe”, he said, “that art must sanctify nature; I believe that vision without the Spirt is vain; and it is the mission of the aesthete to erect beautiful things into immutable icons”.
Face
WOLFGANG PAALEN
As Europe was moving towards representative art under the Surrealist guidance of André Breton, a counter-insurgency was brewing. In their shared city of Paris, a group of artists that included Paalen formed Abstraction-Creation as a rebellion against the surrealist style that was dominating the cultural epoch. It embraced the entire field of abstract art amongst it’s many members, but prioritised the austere; geometric forms, mathematical compositions and reductively elegant shapes stood proudly in the face of the figurative subconscious. Yet Paalen, like many other members of the group, eventually succumbed to the allure of Surrealism and became a fully fledged member of the group. It was only once part of it’s fabric did he truly understand what it was he had rebelled against in the first place, finding the pseudo-religious, obsessively interior motifs of the surrealists as an insufficient way to true spirituality and enlightenment. He abandoned the group and spent years in exile in Mexico, pioneering a new, uniquely Paalen form of art that combined ideas of quantum theory with totemism, psycho-analysis and Marxist critique.
Wolfgang Paalen
WOLFGANG PAALEN, 1946. OIL ON CANVAS.
As Europe was moving towards representative art under the Surrealist guidance of André Breton, a counter-insurgency was brewing. In their shared city of Paris, a group of artists that included Paalen formed Abstraction-Creation as a rebellion against the surrealist style that was dominating the cultural epoch. It embraced the entire field of abstract art amongst it’s many members, but prioritised the austere; geometric forms, mathematical compositions and reductively elegant shapes stood proudly in the face of the figurative subconscious. Yet Paalen, like many other members of the group, eventually succumbed to the allure of Surrealism and became a fully fledged member of the group. It was only once part of it’s fabric did he truly understand what it was he had rebelled against in the first place, finding the pseudo-religious, obsessively interior motifs of the surrealists as an insufficient way to true spirituality and enlightenment. He abandoned the group and spent years in exile in Mexico, pioneering a new, uniquely Paalen form of art that combined ideas of quantum theory with totemism, psycho-analysis and Marxist critique.