Gottlieb became one of the first exponents of
abstract expressionist painting to be
collected by a major
arts institution when, in 1945, New York's Guggenheim Museum bought 11 of his works, followed, in 1946, by the Museum of
Modern Art, New York, who purchased a single work.
We didn't support our
abstract painters in Cornwall and championed «kitchen sink» artists, we haven't been
collecting «
modern art» in the 20th C, which is why the Tate collection is so poor, we have a «literary» understanding of painting, we are «academicizing» fine
art in our educational institutions, we need to re-think what are problem with abstraction really is...