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Newman
is one of the principal artists to be associated with the
movement
that came to be known as Abstract Expressionism.
Based in New York his work came to prominence during the
late 1940s and 1950s.
Newman's painting is typically made on a large scale; it
is emphatically abstract, and deceptively simple.
The majority of these works contain one or more vertical
or near vertical lines inscribed within a broad, flatly
painted field of saturated oil or acrylic colour.
The linear elements, or 'zips' are often made by masking
off areas of the canvas with tape, which is then removed
at some point during the painting process.
Thus the zips can appear either to rest on the surface of
the colour plane or lie somewhere behind it.
The
work has been interpreted in a variety of ways.
For some commentators, Newman is a self-referential abstract
practice in which the lines and planes are seen principally
to emphasise the shape and structure of the rectangular
canvas.
However Newman himself aimed to make work in the tradition
of a 'tragic' or 'sublime' art.
The work would have the ambition of the epic schemes of,
say, Michelangelo, but would be made in entirely modern,
that is to say, abstract terms.
The title often provides a clue to Newman's thinking.
Adam
is clearly not meant as a likeness in a conventional sense.
The work is perhaps more concerned with abstract concepts
such as beginnings, origins and Creation
- other works of the time have titles such as One
and in The Beginning.
For Newman the artist could not adequately illustrate such
fundamental ideas through conventional imagery. Rather his
aim was to produce an abstract equivalent for the experience
of oneness or beginning.
© The Trustees
of The Tate Gallery 2000
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