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Lot Essay
Anchors and Buoys is a pioneering canvas created during the middle of Adolph Gottlieb’s career, when the artist investigated earlier themes in a more refined perspective. Exhibited at the Walker Art Center’s seminal retrospective of the artist’s work in 1963, the painting travelled with the exhibition to the São Paolo Biennial. This exhibition brought Gottlieb to international fame, and he was awarded the Grand Prize, making him the first American to be honored with this distinction. In the 1950’s, around the time Anchors and Buoys was executed, Gottlieb began a series of paintings known as Imaginary Landscapes. This painting is notable among the Imaginary Landscapes for its inclusion of anchor-like symbols, a defining characteristic of the body of Gottlieb’s work. Inspired by philosophy of the Modern era, Gottlieb manipulated and abstracted symbols in his earlier Pictograph works to develop a universal vocabulary absent of cultural distinctions. The chaotic temperament of these Pictograph forms are dealt with more concisely in Anchors and Buoys, the reflection of a mature artist perfecting his technique. The impression of universality is emphasized by the indeterminate appearance of the landscape, which lacks any regional signifiers. Emotional meaning and personal reactions drawn from the visual were more important to Gottlieb than an identifiable truth. The abstraction of organic forms and flattening of the pictorial frame represented a new kind of intellectual realism.
As a young artist, Gottlieb spent days visiting the Louvre and studying at European galleries, making him the most well-travelled of the Abstract Expressionists. This classical art historical perspective, in addition to Gottlieb’s knowledge of Surrealist art, affected his views on composition. The tension between total abstraction and the formal quality of history painting is evident in the separated planes of Anchors and Buoys. Similarly to many of Gottlieb’s Imaginary Landscapes, the lower half of the canvas is energized by gestural brushstrokes, mimicking the movement of water. Three parallel lines reinforce the horizon – the procession of shapes above, the black line connecting anchor and shell-like symbols, and the border where white and colored paint meets. The colossal red block of color to the left balances the large, perpendicular anchor-shape to the right. Further drawing attention to the sea-sky divide, the buoy forms appear to float above the anchor shapes.
Gottlieb foreshadowed the color field works of his contemporaries, such as Rothko. His forms are not gradated in color, but have a readymade quality. He uses flat white to cover the underpainting, the crosshatched maroons and burnt reds of the lower plane, which originally extended upwards. Halos of this mélange are left exposed around the circular and trapezoid shapes, reconnecting the canvas as a whole.
As a young artist, Gottlieb spent days visiting the Louvre and studying at European galleries, making him the most well-travelled of the Abstract Expressionists. This classical art historical perspective, in addition to Gottlieb’s knowledge of Surrealist art, affected his views on composition. The tension between total abstraction and the formal quality of history painting is evident in the separated planes of Anchors and Buoys. Similarly to many of Gottlieb’s Imaginary Landscapes, the lower half of the canvas is energized by gestural brushstrokes, mimicking the movement of water. Three parallel lines reinforce the horizon – the procession of shapes above, the black line connecting anchor and shell-like symbols, and the border where white and colored paint meets. The colossal red block of color to the left balances the large, perpendicular anchor-shape to the right. Further drawing attention to the sea-sky divide, the buoy forms appear to float above the anchor shapes.
Gottlieb foreshadowed the color field works of his contemporaries, such as Rothko. His forms are not gradated in color, but have a readymade quality. He uses flat white to cover the underpainting, the crosshatched maroons and burnt reds of the lower plane, which originally extended upwards. Halos of this mélange are left exposed around the circular and trapezoid shapes, reconnecting the canvas as a whole.