Black Enigma

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, lower left: ADOLPH GOTTLIEB 46; signed, dated, and inscribed, on reverseL BLACK ENIGMA / 1946 / ADOLPH GOTTLIEB. Labels on reverse: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, #71.68; American Federation of the Arts, N.Y. #57.9

Label

Today . . . our obsessive, subterranean and pictographic images are the expression of the neurosis which is our reality. To my mind certain so-called abstraction is not abstraction at all. On the contrary, it is the realism of our time. —Adolph Gottlieb, 1947

During the 1940s the painter Adolph Gottlieb worked to develop the possibilities for expressing mythic content in painting through the use of abstract imagery, particularly drawing upon “primitive” and “archaic” art. He named this series of paintings from 1940s “pictographs,” in reference to the visual language of archaic wall painting. It was a body of work that proved pivotal in changing the direction of vanguard painting in the United States, ushering in the period known today as Abstract Expressionism.

As we can see in Black Enigma, Gottlieb experimented with dividing his canvas into a flat, irregular grid that he filled with ghostly, totemic imagery inspired by his interest in Native American Art (he spent time in Arizona in the late 1930s), African art, and in Surrealism’s focus on mining the unconscious. The somewhat ambiguous, white-on-black signs in Black Enigma include a roughly sketched figure with rounded breasts and a mask-like face. There is too, perhaps, a suggestion of a soldier’s helmet, which in 1946 would have been a fitting reference to the recent world conflict. Such an invocation of diverse modes and cultures reveals Gottlieb’s attempt to find what fundamentally unites mankind, and what the nature of evil is—questions all the more urgent as the horrors of World War II were becoming more fully known.

From the 2019 exhibition Cubism and Its Aftershocks, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

Course History

ARTH 17, Abstract Expressionism, Jim Jordan, Spring 2012

SART 31, Painting II, Tom Ferrara, Summer 2012

ARTH 16.2, Picasso: The Vollard Suite, Michael R. Taylor, Fall 2013

THEA 90, Contemporary Practices in U.S. Theater, Laurie Cherba Kohn, Fall 2013

WRIT 5, The Waste Land, Before and After, Melissa Zeiger, Fall 2013

ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014

PHIL 23, The Philosophy of Art, John Kulvicki, Winter 2014

Writing 7.2, Writers on Writing, Wendy Piper, Spring 2014

THEA 17, 19th and 20th century Performance, Laura Edmondson, Spring 2014

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States, Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States. Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

WRIT 7.2, Writers on Writing, Wendy Piper, Spring 2015

SART 31, SART 72, Painting II/III, Tom Ferrara, Summer 2022

Writing 7.45.01, The Poetics of Surrealism, John Barger, Spring 2024

Writing 7.45.02, The Poetics of Surrealism, John Barger, Spring 2024

Exhibition History

20th Century Art, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 19-May 29, 1988.

A Space for Dialogue 53, Expression of the Unconscious, The Language of Emotion, Anna Nearburg, Class of 2010,The Kathryn Conroy Intern. Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 7-Feburary 7, 2010.

Acquisitions 1974-1978, William B. Jaffe, Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall, Strauss, and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 8, 1978-January 21, 1979.

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Paintings from the Dartmouth Collection, 1910-1960, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 17-April 12, 1998.

American Viewpoints: Painting and Sculpture from the Hood Museum of Art, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California, May 5-August 31, 2003.

An Introduction of the History of Art from the Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampsire, February 12-March 15, 1992.

Art Since 1945: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 19, 1992-March 14, 1993.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 28-June 5, 2000.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 30-July 12, 2006.

Cubism and Its Aftershocks, Citrin Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-February 16, 2020.

Cubism and Its Legacy, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 17-December 20, 2013.

Cultural Exchange, the Body, and Art and Technology, Art History 2, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 25-March 9, 2003.

Executive View: Art in the Office, American Federation of Arts, New York, New York, January-February 1957.

Executive View: Art in the Office, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York, February 14- April 7, 1968.

Exhibited with Abstraction at Mid-Century: Major Works from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 31-June 17, 2001.

Modernism: The Making of the 20th Century Vision, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 22-July 8, 1990.

Second Stage Modernism: Art from 1945 to the Present, William B. Jaffe, Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall, Churchill P. Lathrop, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 6-August 16, 1987.

Surrealist Works from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, MALS, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 20-September 1, 2002.

The Pictographs of Adolph Gottlieb, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., September 17, 1994-January 14, 1995; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, February 5-April 2, 1995; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, April 18-August 26, 1995; The Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 30, 1995-January 31, 1996.

Publication History

Sanford Hirsch for the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, The Pictographs of Adolph Gottlieb, New York: Hudson Hills Press,1994,p., ill. p. 96, plate 29

Robert Doty and Diane Waldman, Adolph Gottlieb, Whitney Museum and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1968.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 109, no. 83.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.24, no.2.

Anna Nearburg, A Space for Dialogue 53, Expression of the Unconscious, The Language of Emotion, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2010, ill. p. 1.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 163, ill. plate no. 94.

Provenance

Lawrence Stanton Richmond (Class of 1930, 1909-1978); bequeathed to present collection, 1978.

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