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'{{Infobox artist | bgcolour = yellow | name = Barnett Newman | image = Newman-Onement 1.jpg | imagesize = 250px | caption = ''Onement 1'', 1948. [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York. The first example of Newman using the so-called "zip" to define the spatial structure of his paintings | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1905|1|29|mf=y}} | birth_place = [[New York City]] | death_date = {{death date and age|1970|7|4|1905|1|29|mf=y}} | death_place = New York City | nationality = American | field = [[Painting]] | training = | movement = [[Abstract Expressionism]], [[Color Field painting]] | works = ''The Stations of the Cross,'' ''[[Vir heroicus sublimis]]'' | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = }} '''Barnett Newman''' (January 29, 1905 &ndash; July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in [[abstract expressionism]] and one of the foremost of the [[color field]] painters. His paintings are existential in tone and content, explicitly composed with the intention of communicating a sense of locality, presence, and contingency.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sylvester|first=David|title=The Grove Book of Art Writing|year=1998|publisher=Grove Press|location=New York, NY|isbn=0802137202|page=537}} Barnet Newman:"The painting should give man a sense of place: that he knows he's there, so he's aware of himself. In that sense he relates to me when I made the painting because in that sense I was there... [Hopefully] you [have] a sense of your own scale [standing in front of the painting]... To me that sense of place has not only a sense of mystery but also has a sense of metaphysical fact. I have come to distrust the episodic, and I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality and the same time of his connection to others, who are also separate."</ref> ==Early life== Newman was born in New York City, the son of [[Jew]]ish immigrants from Poland. He studied philosophy at the [[City College of New York]] and worked in his father's business manufacturing clothing. He later made a living as a teacher, writer and critic.<ref name="foundation">[http://www.barnettnewman.org/chronology.php The Barnett Newman Foundation website: Chronology of the Artist's Life page]</ref> From the 1930s on he made paintings, said to be in an [[expressionist]] style, but eventually destroyed all these works. Newman met art teacher Annalee Greenhouse in 1934; they were married on June 30, 1936.<ref>[[Roberta Smith]] (May 13, 2000), [http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/13/arts/annalee-newman-91-muse-and-support-for-the-artist.html Annalee Newman, 91, Muse And Support for the Artist] ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref> ==Career== {{Cquote2|What is the explanation of the seemingly insane drive of man to be painter and poet if it is not an act of defiance against man's fall and an assertion that he return to the Garden of Eden? For the artists are the first men.|Barnett Newman <ref>Barbara Hess (2005). ''Abstract Expressionism''. Taschen. p. 40. ISBN 978-382282970-7</ref>}} Newman wrote catalogue forewords and reviews and also organized exhibitions before becoming a member of the [[The Art of This Century Gallery|Uptown Group]] and having his first solo show at the [[Betty Parsons |Betty Parsons Gallery]] in 1948. Soon after his first exhibition, Newman remarked in one of the Artists' Session at Studio 35: "We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image."<ref>{{cite book| title=Barnett Newman Selected Writings and Interviews| editor= John P. O'Neill| pages= 240-241|publisher= University of California Press|year= 1990|isbn=| url=http://books.google.ch/books?id=yaJ1niWLPHMC&pg=PA241#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> Utilizing his writing skills, Newman fought every step of the way to reinforce his newly established image as an artist and to promote his work. An example is his letter on April 9, 1955, "Letter to [[Sidney Janis]]: ...it is true that [[Mark Rothko|Rothko]] talks the fighter. He fights, however, to submit to the philistine world. My struggle against bourgeois society has involved the total rejection of it."<ref>{{cite book| title=Barnett Newman Selected Writings and Interviews| editor= John P. O'Neill| page= 201|publisher= University of California Press|year= 1990|isbn=| url=http://books.google.ch/books?id=yaJ1niWLPHMC&pg=PA201#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> Throughout the 1940s he worked in a [[surrealist]] vein before developing his mature style. This is characterised by areas of color separated by thin vertical lines, or "zips" as Newman called them. In the first works featuring zips, the color fields are variegated, but later the colors are pure and flat. Newman himself thought that he reached his fully mature style with the ''Onement'' series (from 1948). The zips define the spatial structure of the painting, while simultaneously dividing and uniting the composition. [[File:Newman-Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue.jpg|thumb|left|upright|''Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?'', 1966. Typical of Newman's later work, with the use of pure and vibrant color.]] The zip remained a constant feature of Newman's work throughout his life. In some paintings of the 1950s, such as ''The Wild'', which is eight feet tall by one and a half inches wide (2.4 meters by 2 centimeters), the zip is all there is to the work. Newman also made a few [[sculpture]]s which are essentially three-dimensional zips.<ref name="Dictionary">Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 511. ISBN 0199239665.</ref> Although Newman's paintings appear to be purely abstract, and many of them were originally untitled, the names he later gave them hinted at specific subjects being addressed, often with a Jewish theme. Two paintings from the early 1950s, for example, are called ''Adam'' and ''Eve'' (see [[Adam and Eve]]), and there is also ''[[Uriel]]'' (1954) and ''[[Abraham]]'' (1949), a very dark painting, which as well as being the name of a biblical patriarch, was also the name of Newman's father, who had died in 1947. ''The Stations of the Cross'' series of black and white paintings (1958–66), begun shortly after Newman had recovered from a [[myocardial infarction|heart attack]], is usually regarded as the peak of his achievement. The series is subtitled "Lema sabachthani" - "why have you forsaken me" - the last words spoken by [[Jesus]] on the cross, according to the [[New Testament]]. Newman saw these words as having universal significance in his own time. The series has also been seen as a memorial to the victims of the [[holocaust]].<ref>{{cite web| url= http://forward.com/articles/159912/his-cross-to-bear/?p=all| title=His Cross To Bear. Barnett Newman Dealt With Suffering in ‘Zips’| author= Menachem Wecker| work= [[The Jewish Daily Forward]]| date=August 1, 2012| accessdate= August 8, 2012}}</ref> Newman's late works, such as the ''[[Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue]]'' series, use vibrant, pure colors, often on very large canvases - ''Anna's Light'' (1968), named in memory of his mother who had died in 1965, is his largest work, 28 feet wide by 9 feet tall (8.5 by 2.7 meters). Newman also worked on [[shaped canvas]]es late in life, with ''Chartres'' (1969), for example, being triangular, and returned to sculpture, making a small number of sleek pieces in [[steel]]. These later paintings are executed in [[acrylic paint]] rather than the [[oil paint]] of earlier pieces. Of his sculptures, ''[[Broken Obelisk]]'' (1963) is the most monumental and best-known, depicting an inverted obelisk whose point balances on the apex of a pyramid. [[File:Barnett Newman, Broken Obelisk (designed 1963, cast 1967), Quadrangle, Suzzallo Library, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington - 20060328.jpg|right|thumb|''[[Broken Obelisk]]'' in the [[University of Washington]]'s [[Red Square (University of Washington)|Red Square]]]] Newman also made a series of [[lithograph]]s, the ''18 Cantos'' (1963–64) which, according to Newman, are meant to be evocative of music. He also made a small number of [[etching]]s. Newman is generally classified as an [[abstract expressionist]] on account of his working in New York City in the 1950s, associating with other artists of the group and developing an abstract style which owed little or nothing to European art. However, his rejection of the expressive brushwork employed by other abstract expressionists such as [[Clyfford Still]] and [[Mark Rothko]], and his use of hard-edged areas of flat color, can be seen as a precursor to [[post painterly abstraction]] and the [[minimalism|minimalist]] works of artists such as [[Frank Stella]]. Newman was unappreciated as an artist for much of his life, being overlooked in favour of more colorful characters such as [[Jackson Pollock]]. The influential critic [[Clement Greenberg]] wrote enthusiastically about him, but it was not until the end of his life that he began to be taken seriously. He was, however, an important influence on many younger artists such as [[Donald Judd]], [[Frank Stella]] and [[Bob Law]].<ref name="Dictionary">Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 512. ISBN 0199239665.</ref> ==Legacy== Newman died in New York City of a heart attack in 1970.<ref name="foundation"/> Nine years after Newman's death, his widow Annalee founded the Barnett Newman Foundation. The foundation not only functions as his official estate, but also serves "to encourage the study and understanding of Barnett Newman's life and works."<ref>[http://www.barnettnewman.org/about.php The Barnett Newman Foundation website: About the Foundation page]</ref> The foundation was instrumental in creating Newman's [[catalogue raisonné]] in 2004.<ref>[http://www.barnettnewman.org/catalogue.php The Barnett Newman Foundation website: Catalogue Raisonne page]</ref> The U.S. copyright representative for the Barnett Newman Foundation is the [[Artists Rights Society]].<ref>[http://arsny.com/requested.html Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights Society]</ref> ==Selected collections== [[File:Cathedra by Barnett Newman.jpg|thumb|A visitor to the [[Stedelijk Museum]] in Amsterdam contemplates Newman's 1951 painting, "Cathedra"]] Come on, this guy made only shit! Among the public collections holding works by Barnett Newman are the [[Addison Gallery of American Art]] (Andover, Massachusetts), the [[Allen Memorial Art Museum]] (Oberlin College, Ohio), the [[Art Institute of Chicago]], the [[Berlin State Museums]], the [[Cleveland Museum of Art]], [[Harvard University Art Museums]], the [[Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden]] (Washington D.C.), the [[Indianapolis Museum of Art]], [[Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art]] (Japan), [[Kunstmuseum Basel]] (Switzerland), the [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]], the [[Menil Collection]] (Houston, Texas), the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], [[Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía]] (Madrid), the [[Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles]], the [[Museum of Modern Art]] (New York City), the [[Nasher Sculpture Center]] (Dallas, Texas), the [[Nassau County Museum of Art]] (Roslyn Harbor, New York), the [[National Gallery of Art]] (Washington D.C.), the [[National Gallery of Canada]] (Ottawa), the [[San Francisco Museum of Modern Art]], the [[Sheldon Museum of Art]] (Lincoln, Nebraska), the [[Smithsonian American Art Museum]] (Washington D.C.), [[Stedelijk Museum]] (Amsterdam), the [[Tate Gallery]] (London), the [[Wadsworth Atheneum]] (Hartford, Connecticut), the [[Walker Art Center]] (Minneapolis, Minnesota), the [[Wallraf-Richartz-Museum]] (Cologne, Germany), and the [[Whitney Museum of American Art]] (New York City). ==Art market== After Newman had an artistic breakthrough in 1948, he and his wife decided that he should devote all his energy to his art. They lived almost entirely off Annalee Newman's teaching salary until the late 1950s, when Newman's paintings began to sell consistently.<ref>[[Roberta Smith]] (May 13, 2000), [http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/13/arts/annalee-newman-91-muse-and-support-for-the-artist.html Annalee Newman, 91, Muse And Support for the Artist] ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref> ''Ulysses'' (1952), a blue-and-black striped painting, sold in 1985 for $1,595,000 at [[Sotheby's]] to an American collector who was not identified.<ref>Rita Reif (May 3, 1985), [http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/03/arts/barnett-newman-s-ulysses-sold-at-sotheby-s-auction.html Barnett Newman's 'Ulysses' Sold At Sotheby's Auction] ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref> Consigned by [[Microsoft]] co-founder [[Paul Allen]] and previously part of [[Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation|Frederick R. Weisman's collection]], Newman’s 8.5-by-10-foot ''Onement VI'' (1953) was sold for a record $43.8 million at [[Sotheby's]] New York in 2013; its sale was ensured by an undisclosed third-party guarantee.<ref>Katya Kazakina and Philip Boroff (May 15, 2013), [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/barnett-newman-fetches-record-44-million-at-sotheby-s.html Barnett Newman Leads Sotheby’s NYC $294 Million Auction] ''[[Bloomberg L.P.|Bloomberg]]''</ref> ==See also== *''[[Voice of Fire]]'' painted by Newman in 1967. *[[Broken Obelisk]] *''[[Vir heroicus sublimis|Vir Heroicus Sublimis]]'' ==References== {{Reflist|2}} ==Further reading== * Ellyn Childs Allison, ed., [http://www.worldcat.org/title/barnett-newman-a-catalogue-raisonne/oclc/55487321 ''Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné''] (Yale University Press, 2004.) ISBN 0-300-10167-8 * {{cite book| author=Bruno Eble| title=Barnett Newman et l'art roman| location= Paris| publisher= L'Harmattan| year=2011 | isbn=978-2-296-55188-6|language=french| url=http://books.google.ch/books?id=NSMagZEohhwC&lpg=PP1&hl=de&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}} * {{cite book| author=Mark Godfrey| title=Abstraction and the Holocaust| pages=51-78| publisher=Yale University Press| year= 2007| isbn= 978-0-300-12676-1| url=http://books.google.ch/books?id=fJu2-D2nhRwC&pg=PA52#v=onepage&q&f=false}} * Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50253062&tab=holdings ''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey''] (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4 * Ann Temkin, [http://www.worldcat.org/title/barnett-newman/oclc/48674613 ''Barnett Newman''] (Yale University Press, 2002.) [Catalogue for the Exhibition "Barnett Newman," Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 24 to July 7, 2002; Tate Modern London, September 19, 2002, to January 5, 2003] ISBN 0-87633-156-8 * [[Jean-Francois Lyotard]], "Newmann: The Instant", in: ''Jean-Francois Lyotard, Miscellaneous Texts II: Contemporary Artists'' (Leuven University Press, 2012.) ISBN 978-90-586-7886-7 ==External links== {{Commons category}} {{Wikiquote}} *[http://www.barnettnewman.org/ The Barnett Newman Foundation] *{{MoMA artist|4285}} *[http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/newman/index.html Barnett Newman at the Philadelphia Museum of Art] *[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1699&page=1&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=worklist Newman's page at the Tate Gallery] (includes images of the ''18 Cantos'' and other works) *[http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/american-museum-natural-history-dept-anthropology-correspondence-barnett-newman-and-betty-parsons-10978 American Museum of Natural History, Dept. of Anthropology correspondence with Barnett Newman and Betty Parsons, 1944-1946] in the collection of the Smithsonian [[Archives of American Art]] {{Authority control|GND=118587501|LCCN=n/79/109192|VIAF=19686304}} {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. --> | NAME = Newman, Barnett | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = American artist | DATE OF BIRTH = January 29, 1905 | PLACE OF BIRTH = [[New York City, New York]] | DATE OF DEATH = July 4, 1970 | PLACE OF DEATH = }} {{DEFAULTSORT:Newman, Barnett}} [[Category:1905 births]] [[Category:1970 deaths]] [[Category:Abstract expressionist artists]] [[Category:20th-century American painters]] [[Category:Jewish painters]] [[Category:Jewish American artists]] [[Category:Artists from New York City]] [[Category:Modern painters]] [[Category:American artists]] [[Category:Art Students League of New York alumni]] [[Category:Jewish artists]] [[Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent]] [[Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction]] [[Category:City College of New York alumni]]'