Different times require different images. Today when our aspirations have been reduced to a desperate attempt to escape from evil, and times are out of joint, our obsessive, subterranean and pictographic images are the expression of the neurosis which is our reality. To my mind certain so-called abstraction is not abstraction at all. On the contrary, it is the realism of our time. –Adolph Gottlieb

Adolph Gottlieb was a leading American abstract expressionist painter of the 20th century, renown for employing invented abstract symbols that transcend time, place and language in his artwork to achieve universal meaning. Inspired by Surrealism and primitive art, Gottlieb produced the Pictograph series early in his career, a series that laid the foundation for his development into pure abstraction. Pictographs rejected traditional narratives and instead depicted images from his subconscious mind, arranging each figurative symbol into a loose grid structure. In 1948, Gottlieb deconstructed the grid composition to reflect nature’s forces of order and chaos, integrating and layering abstract forms that are relatable to a larger universal language. Interpretation demonstrates Gottlieb’s progression into this pure abstraction by using an evocative and highly developed lexicon. Symbols from Gottlieb’s subconscious and AbEx lines are layered over each other, reflecting his expression of authentic feeling in lines and symbols.