Color lithograph on Arches, 1969. 755x531 mm; 29 1/2x20 5/8 inches (sheet), full margins. Signed, dated and numbered 14/100 in pencil, lower margin. Published by Marlborough Graphics, Inc., New York. A very good 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), while they parallel the early intaglio work of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) from Atelier 17 in New York.
Gottlieb's Burst paintings, and the color screenprints and lithographs which were derived from them, date from the height of career. He began with the motif during the late 1950s and continued to employ it throughout the remainder of his career. These Burst images combine the gestural strokes of Abstract Expressionism with a mastery of color. They have become synonymous with Gottlieb's work, much like his friend Rothko's ractangular color field paintings. Associated American Artists 65.
