Pink and Indian Red 1946

Adolph Gottlieb made *Pink and Indian Red* with paint, but I don't know exactly when. It feels like he was starting a conversation with himself, laying down marks and shapes with confidence. Look at the way the colors interact – that sandy pink pushing against the depth of the Indian red. The paint isn't trying to hide; you can see the texture, the little bumps and scrapes where the brush moved. It's like the painting is showing you how it came to be. There’s this one spot, a red circle with orange and white rings, not quite centered, slightly smudged. It anchors the whole composition, pulls your eye in, but it’s not perfect, it has a wobbly, human feel. Gottlieb's kind of reminding us that art isn't about perfection, it's about the gesture, the process. His work makes me think of another painter who wasn't afraid to play, like Forrest Bess. Both Gottlieb and Bess were interested in something beyond the surface, the strange beauty of symbols and the power of art to express the unexplainable.