Adolph Gottlieb
Totem1947

Not on view

Abstract vertical painting with a grid of symbolic forms — stylized faces, eyes, and figures — in sand yellow, chocolate brown, black, and white

Reverse of a stretched canvas showing wooden crossbar stretcher, hanging wire, and handwritten inscription reading '48 x 36 / "TOTEM" / Adolph Gottlieb / 1947' in the upper right, with additional handwritten notations and a label on the lower left.

Artist or Maker: Adolph Gottlieb
United States, 1903-1974
Title: Totem
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1947
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 48 × 36 in. (121.92 × 91.44 cm)
Credit Line: Partial, fractional and promised gift of Janice and Henri Lazarof
Accession Number: M.2005.70.35
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: During the 1940s and 1950s, Adolph Gottlieb created paintings known as “pictographs,” which reflected his interests in Surrealism and geometric abstraction. He insisted on the relation of his symbols to the unconscious. With its graphic signs ordered in a grid, Totem appears to convey a readable message, the icons cohering into the features of mask-like faces accompanied by simple patterns. While Gottlieb claimed to avoid specific cultural references in his work, his encounter with Native American imagery during trips to the Arizona desert in the 1930s may have inspired the painting’s earth-toned palette.

Wall label, 2021.
Provenance: [Samuel Kootz Gallery, New York]; Dr. Norman & Mrs. Jane Laskey, Mt. Kisco, New York; [B.C. Holland, Chicago]; Private collection, New York; [Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, sold 1988 to]; Janice and Henri Lazarof, Los Angeles, partial, fractional and promised gift 2005 to; LACMA.
Selected Bibliography: Lawrence, James, and Sandford Hirsch. Adolph Gottlieb: A Powerful Will to Art. New York: George R. Miller & Co.: Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, 2024.

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