Crimson Spinning #2
1959
A native New Yorker, Gottlieb became one of the early supporters of abstraction in the 1930s, a decade before it became a driving force of the American vanguard. He first became known for his invented visual language of symbols and archetypal abstractions, including eyes and graphic marks, arranged in grid formations that covered the entire canvas. This painting is part of a celebrated series known as his Burst paintings. Begun in 1957, the series introduced a dynamic between two distinctive forms on a white field. Gottlieb noted, “…this was like a solitary image or two images that were just floating in the canvas space. They had to hold the space and they also had to create all the movements that took place within the rectangle.” Crimson Spinning #2 was painted flat to prevent the paint from running.
Oil on canvas
90 x 72 in. (228.7 x 182.9 cm)
Gift of the Friday Foundation in honor of Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis
2020.14.9
Provenance: The artist; [Galerie Rive Droit, Paris, France]; private collection, Paris, France; Mr. and Mrs. Harry Sherwood, Beverly Hills, California, via 1965 auction; [Marlborough Gallery, New York]; purchased from gallery by Jane and Richard E. Lang, Seattle, Washington, 1972; Friday Foundation, Seattle, Washington, 2018; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2020
Photo: Scott Leen