GOTTLIEB SCULPTOR

Well known as one of the most original painters of American Abstract Expressionism, Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) developed a rich trajectory, departing from tribal mythology to arrive at the purest geometry. His mature work develops a vocabulary of elemental forms in a reduced game of color contrast, through which he seeks his characteristic expressiveness.

Gottlieb’s sculpture, shown for the first time shown in Europe, is the result of a short and intense work, between 1967 and 1968 (as was also thee case with his colleague from the New York School Esteban Vicente). His works consist of cut forms that intersect, as if decomposing the surface of his painting into three dimensions. As in his canvases, his force comes from the principle that everything gains in definition if it includes its opposite. This way the black color, for instance, is at the same time a contrast and a compensation to the rest of the forms; it is part of the work and its pedestal.

In this exhibition we may see the complete process of his work, the cardboard models, the cardboard templates he used to cut the forms in aluminium or iron, the sculptures (mostly all he made) and, as documentation, images of the only three works he made in outdoor scale