ADOLPH GOTTLIEB
Orange Oval.
Color screenprint on Arches, 1972. 480x610 mm; 18¾x23¾ inches, full margins. Signed, dated and numbered 75/150 in pencil, lower margin. Published by Marlborough Graphics, Inc., New York. A superb impression with strong colors.After high school, Gottlieb (1903-1974) attended the Art Students League in New York and traveled Europe in the early 1920s. He became friends with Mark Rothko (1903-1970) in the 1930s and the two often worked and exhibited together when possible. He and Rothko were founding members of the group of artists known as The Ten, who began meeting together in New York in 1934.Around the early 1930s, Gottlieb also became interested in etching, buying an old press from a junk shop and printing proofs for his own enjoyment, in extremely small editions, most of those which survive are from the early 1940s. These early etchings show strong ties to the Surrealist prints of Joan Miró (1893-1983), Kurt Seligmann (1900-1962) and Yves Tanguy (1900-1955). Whether or not Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) ever knew these early etchings by Gottlieb is hard to say, though there are certainly affinities with Pollock's 1944-45 intaglio prints from Atelier 17. Associated American Artists 72.