Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Seashore, 1909-10, German Romanticism

Frederick Edwin Church, Rainy Season in the Tropics, 1866US Transcendentalism, Hudson River School

Barnett Newman, Pagan Void, Oil on canvas, 33 x 38”, 1946

Barnett Newman, Onement I (1948), 27 1/4 inches by 16 1/4 inches, oil on canvas and oil on masking tape on canvas; Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, oil on canvas, 79,5 x 79,5 cm

Barnett Newman Vir Heroicus Sublimus, 1950-51, o/c, c 8’/ 18’ MoMA

Barnett Newman and an unidentified viewer with Cathedra in Newman's studio, 1958.

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Newman, Broken Obelisk, Rothko Chapel, Houston, Philip Johnson, 1971

Mark Rothko (American b. Marcus Rothkowitz, Lithuania 1903 -1970)(left) Self-Portrait, o/c, 32/25”, 1936;

(right) Entrance to Subway [Subway Scene], o/c, 1938

"Art Must be Tragic and Timeless"

Surrealism and myth

Rothko, Omen of the Eagle, 1942

In a 1943 letter to the New York Times with Barnett Newman, Rothko wrote:

“It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints, as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing. We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess a spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art."

Biomorphic Surrealism and automatism

"It was with the utmost reluctance that I found the figure could not serve my purposes....But a time came when none of us could use the figure without mutilating it.“

Rothko, Sea Fantasy, 1946; (right) Untitled, 1944/1945

Rothko, (left) Number 7, 1947-48; (right) No. 17/No. 15 [Multiform],1949

Rothko, Untitled,1949, National Gallery of Art

Rothko, Untitled [Blue, Green, and Brown],1952; Rothko in West 53rd Street Studio 1952

"The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them."

Rothko, No. 14, 1960, o/c, 9.48 x 9.70 ft, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Rothko Chapel suite of paintings, 1965-66, De Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, 1970

David Smith (American, 1906-1965), at Terminal Iron Works (Brooklyn NYC), 1933

David Smith, Untitled Study, 1939, pencil on paper, 11in ; Medal for Dishonor: Private Law and Order Leagues, and (right) Bombing Civilians, 1939, cast bronze, 10 3/4 in.

Smith, Jurassic Bird, painted steel, 1945; Specter of Profit, 1946 steel and stainless steelwith notebook sketches from the Museum of Natural History, New York, mid-forties

Smith. (American, 1906-1965), Australia, 1951, painted steel, 6' 7 x 8'12" x 16" (on cinder block base)

Compare: (right) Julio Gonzalez (Spanish, 1876-1942), Woman Combing Her Hair, 1932; (below center) Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), Head of a Woman, 1933

David Smith, "drawing in space“ welding, construction, assemblage process Surrealist & Action Painting automatism, spontaneity

(right) Compare Picasso studio, 1912 with constructed guitar (first constructed sculpture)

Compare David Smith with RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVIST Sculptors(left) Third Obmokhu (an art school) Exhibition Moscow, 1920

Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third International, model completed in 1920 Commissioned by the Peoples Commissariat for Enlightenment, USSR

Smith, Hudson River Landscape, detail and two views, 1951“Drawing in Space” (2-D perception?)

Smith, Tanktotems, 1951-2; (center top) Picasso, Bull’s Head, 1943; (center below) photo of tank tops c.1951) – anthropomorphism, found materials assemblage welding

Smith, Zig IV, painted steel, 1963

Voltri series, 1962, 27 welded sculptures in 30 days

Smith, Voltri XVII, 1962, steel, 95 in H; (right) Smith erecting Voltron XVII in 1963

Smith, (left) Cubi XXVII, 1965., 111” H; (center) Cubi XVII, 1963, stainless steel

Smith surveying his “personages” at Bolton landing, 1963 Died 2 yrs later in a truck crash