Adolph Gottlieb, Aaron Siskind, c. 1927, oil on canvas, 27 1/16 x 19 13/16"
In 1942, Adolph Gottlieb was photographed at his home in Brooklyn by his friend and photographer Aaron Siskind. In the 1920s, after Gottlieb returned to New York from his time in Europe, the two first met as members of a literary society. Siskind was then a student at City College studying social science and his friendship with Gottlieb fueled his interest in contemporary art.
Below, we have collected the 1942 photographs of Gottlieb by Aaron Siskind and other supplementary material from our archive.
Adolph Gottlieb in his home/studio in Brooklyn with pieces from his African art collection, 1942, © Aaron Siskind Foundation.
"It was in the early ‘20s. And Aaron, together with a group of my friends, were all going to City College at the time. Most of them belonged to a literary society at City College called Clyonia. All of them had literary interests. I had some literary interests, but only as a side issue because I already considered myself at that time a painter. Well, I didn’t go to City College. I had, at that point, come back from a year and a half, a year where I had been studying painting. So that was these literary men, so-called, I guess. I was the one who knew about painting—I more or less introduced them to Contemporary Painting. A number of us used to go quite regularly to the museums and the galleries. We used to haunt them, the museums."
–Adolph Gottlieb in a March 1971 interview with Carl Chiarenza
"I had spent a year in Arizona, in ’37. When I came back I recall that Aaron made some photographs of me. And then I made a deal with him that he would photograph all my new paintings and I would give him a painting, which we did."
–Adolph Gottlieb in a March 1971 interview with Carl Chiarenza
Adolph Gottlieb in his home/studio in Brooklyn with paintings including Reflection (1941) and Pictograph (1942), 1942, © Aaron Siskind Foundation.
Adolph Gottlieb, Reflection, 1941, oil on linen, 20 x 16 1/16"
Adolph Gottlieb, Pictograph, 1942, oil on canvas, 48 x 36"
"I was rather surprised when I discovered that Aaron was very seriously taking photographs. And the first ones I recall seeing were in the early ‘40s up in Gloucester when he was taking photographs of a wooden fence, and showing the cracks, minute detail. They looked very much like Abstract Expressionist paintings. It struck me. They had this painterly character."
–Adolph Gottlieb in a March 1971 interview with Carl Chiarenza
Adolph Gottlieb in his home/studio in Brooklyn in front of Pictograph - Symbol (1942), 1942, © Aaron Siskind Foundation
Adolph Gottlieb, Pictograph - Symbol, 1942, oil on canvas, 54 x 40", Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Siskind frequently visited Gottlieb during his many summers spent in Gloucester, Massachusettes and they remained close friends until Siskind moved to Chicago in 1951.
Aaron Siskind, Gloucester Rocks 3, 1944, Gelatin silver print, © Aaron Siskind Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art.