Collections Database

Description:
irregularly gridded image, with crossed lines and/or oval shapes in each, overall dark blue tone; abstract

Label Text:
This painting belongs to the post-war period of Adolph Gottlieb’s pictographs, a series of paintings from 1941 to 1953 combining signs and symbols in a gridlike format. Gottlieb drew from a variety of sources for his imagery, from African masks and the shield arts of Oceania to Native American iconography as well. For example, the eye motifs may reflect similar forms in Chilkat dancing blankets of the Northwest Coast.

Gottlieb also borrowed themes and images from myth and literature. At least one writer has related the blues and greens
of this painting to a sea-faring journey, but its title suggests a descent into an underworld of fear and death relating to the Second World War.

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1951.121

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.