In 1941, Adolph Gottlieb started making works he called Pictographs, using a grid of compartments filled with signs and simplified images. He aimed to combine abstraction with ideas drawn from Surrealism and the unconscious mind. This created a new, repeatable structure he could develop over many years.
On June 7, 1943, Gottlieb and Mark Rothko sent a public letter to the art editor of The New York Times responding to criticism of their work. The letter helped define how they wanted abstract art to be read: as meaningful and communicative rather than “about nothing.” This public defense became part of the emerging intellectual identity of Abstract Expressionism.
Across the mid-1940s, Gottlieb continued expanding the Pictographs into paintings, prints, and drawings. Museum descriptions emphasize that the series was a sustained attempt to reconcile abstract form with psychologically charged imagery. By this point, the format was recognizable: compartmentalized spaces holding eyes, marks, and symbolic shapes.
By around 1950–1951, Gottlieb described pushing beyond the earlier, clearly boxed compartments, experimenting with more complex grid structures and then reducing or removing the compartmental “boxes.” This transition mattered because it shows him deliberately leaving a successful formula to search for new spatial structures. The change set up the next major phase of his work.
In 1951, Gottlieb painted the first Imaginary Landscape work (titled The Frozen Sounds), shifting away from the Pictographs’ grid. This new format typically used two horizontal zones (registers), creating a different kind of space and tension. The move helped him explore opposites—active versus quiet, dense versus open—without returning to traditional landscape illusion.
In 1957, the Jewish Museum in New York presented a major exhibition of Gottlieb’s work. Contemporary documentation from the Gottlieb Foundation highlights the show’s reception and reviews at the time. The exhibition mattered because it positioned him as an established leader within a still-developing Abstract Expressionist movement.
In 1957, Gottlieb began exhibiting the first works of his Burst series. These paintings typically place a floating circular form in an upper zone above a darker, gestural mass below, turning his interest in opposites into a simplified, iconic structure. The Bursts became one of his best-known contributions to Abstract Expressionism’s later phase.
The Museum of Modern Art’s international program organized The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries (1958–1959), a major touring exhibition that included Gottlieb. This tour helped introduce Abstract Expressionist painting to wider European audiences. For Gottlieb, it reinforced that his evolving series-based approach (including Bursts) was part of a broader American movement gaining international visibility.
By 1960, Gottlieb was producing mature Burst paintings, keeping the two-zone structure while varying color, scale, and the energy of the lower brushwork. Museum descriptions explain that the method combines qualities associated with both “color field” painting (broad areas of color) and “action painting” (visible, energetic gestures). These later Bursts show how a reduced vocabulary could still carry strong contrasts and emotional tension.
In 1964, Gottlieb joined Marlborough, beginning a more formal collaborative printmaking relationship with the gallery. This mattered for the 1960s because it expanded the Burst idea beyond painting into graphic works, helping circulate the imagery to new audiences and collectors. It also reflects how established Abstract Expressionists adapted their practice during a changing art market.
On October 25, 1967, Gottlieb recorded an extensive oral history interview with the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. He discussed how he developed the Pictographs, why he moved away from them, and how later formats simplified and clarified what he wanted to express. This interview is important because it preserves a first-person explanation of the transitions linking Pictographs to later work, including the Bursts.
In February 1968, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened major Gottlieb exhibitions simultaneously in New York. In his oral history, Gottlieb described the Guggenheim show as focusing on the Pictographs (roughly 1941–1952, with some overlap), while the Whitney show covered later work into the 1960s. The joint presentation cemented the Pictograph and Burst periods as central chapters in his career and in Abstract Expressionism’s legacy.
Adolph Gottlieb's Pictograph and Burst periods (1942–1965)