Pictograph-Symbol

Adolph Gottlieb’s Pictograph series, created between 1941 and 1951, represents the artist’s early efforts at reconciling elements of abstraction with an exploration of the subconscious. To make these works, the artist laid down a grid as an organizing structure. Using a process of free association and intuition influenced by the Surrealist technique of automatism, or automatic drawing, he decided to employ symbols to fill the grid. Mining eclectic source material from non-Western cultures and modern art, Gottlieb invented a pictorial language that aimed to represent and convey universal ideas to the viewer.