Barnett Newman

Barnett Newman (January 29th 1905, New York - July 4th 1970, New York) is an American painter . He is one of the most important representatives of the abstract Expressionnisme and one of the first painters of the Colorfield Painting.

Youth

Newman was born to the 480 Street Cherry on the Lower East Side from Manhattan to New York, wire of Jewish immigrants of Russia, Abraham and Anna (born, respectively, in 1874 and 1882). He studies the Philosophie with the City College of New York then works in the company of clothing of his father. In the Années 1930 it paints what one says to have been of works expressionists, but it destroys them all. He becomes writer then and art Critic, organizes exposures and writes the catalogs. Later, he becomes member of the Uptown Group .

Career

Barnett Newman written of the forewords of catalogs and the reviews then at the end of the years 1940 it starts to expose in the gallery of Betty Parsons. Its first personal exposure proceeds in 1948. As soon as after this first exposure, Barnett Newman will say at an artistic session of the Studio 35: “We are in the train, to some extent, making the world with our image. ” Making use of its talent of writer, Newman fights, step by step to reinforce its new image of artist and to promote his work.

One can quote for example his letter of April 9th 1955, “Letter with Sidney Janis: --- It is true that Rothko speaks to the combatant. He fights, however, to subject the world of the Philistines. My combat against the middle-class company convinced me to reject it completely. ”.

In the Années 1940 its style is rather surrealist then becomes riper. This is characterized by surfaces of color separated by fine vertical lines, " zips" (in English " means; closing éclair") as it names them. In the first works presenting these zips, the fields of color are not uniform, but thereafter, the colors are pure and punts. Newman itself thought that it had reached the full maturity of its style with the series Onement , in 1948.

The zip will remain a constant element of the career of Newman. In some paintings of the Années 1950, like The Wild , which makes two meters forty length out of four centimetres broad, the zip is well there, if it is not work in it even. Newman also carries out some Sculpture S which is primarily a three-dimensional representation of zips.

Although paintings of Newman seem purely abstract and that number of them did not have a title, at the origin, names that it gave them then refer to specific subjects, often in connection with a topic on the Judaïsme. Two works of the beginning of the year 1950, for example, names Adam and Eve , then also Uriel (1954) and Abraham (1949), a very dark painting, whose name is certe that of the patriarch of the Bible but was also that of the father of Newman deceased in 1947.

The series of paintings in black and white, The Stations off the Cross-country race (1958-64), begins shortly after that Newman recovered from a heart attack, it is seen as one summon its career. The series is subtitled " Lema sabachthani" - " Why you have me abandonné" - words pronounced by the Christ on the cross. Newman sees its words like having a universal direction. The series was also seen like a memorial with the victims of the Shoah.

Last works

Late works of Newman like the series Who' S Afraid off Red, Yellow and Blue , are made pure and vibrating colors, often on vast fabrics - Anna' S Light (1968), baptized thus in memory of his/her mother who died in 1965, is largest, eight meters forty out of two meters seventy. Newman also works on nonrectangular fabrics towards the end of its life, like Chartres (1969), for example which is triangular, then returns to the sculpture, carrying out some polished steel parts. Its last paintings are carried out with acrylic Peinture rather than with Oil-base paint as in its preceding works. Among its sculptures, the Broken Obelisk largest and are known, representing a Obélisque with the back whose point rests on that of a Pyramide.

It also carries out a series of Lithographie S, the 18 Cantos (1963-64) which according to Newman, evoke the music. Its work counts also some Eau-forte S.

Newman is in general regarded as a abstract expressionnist, if one bases oneself on his work in New York, in the years 1950, where with other artists of this tendency it developed an abstract style which did not have anything any more commun run with European art. However its rejection of expressive work to the brush such as used it other expressionnists abstracted like Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko and the use of flat tint of color on well delimited surfaces, can make of him a precursor of the artists of the pictorial movements Hard-edge painting , Colorfield Painting and Minimalisme, such as Frank Stella.

Newman did not gain a great success as artist during most of its life, being eclipsed by high characters colors like Jackson Pollock. The influential one criticizes Clement Greenberg wrote on him enthusiastic papers, but it is not before the end of its life that one started to consider it seriously. It influenced nevertheless many young people painters.

Newman died in New York of an heart attack in 1970.

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