EAST HAMPTON NY.- On view from September 1 to 11, the show brings together a selection of monotypes which are among the last pieces created by Gottlieb. With these unique works, some of which were made in Gottlieb’s studio in East Hampton, the influential New York School artist explored a new medium while maintaining his distinct visual vocabulary.

Gottlieb, who began summering in East Hampton in 1958 and purchased a property in the town in 1960, forged a strong connection to the East End creative community in the later years of his life and career. Pace’s presentation of his work in East Hampton spotlights a selection of monotypes from a series he began in the spring of 1973 and continued until shortly before his death in 1974. Using a press to make his monotypes, Gottlieb was able to dedicate himself to these intimate works in his final months.

The artist’s interest in polarity and balance is evident in his monotypes, which feature a range of abstract formations and flourishes. These works reflect Gottlieb’s long-standing investigations into the nuances of color and space.

“Gottlieb’s color was always varied and subtle apart from his black-and-red paintings, but it is freshly delicate in the late work,” the late critic and curator Lawrence Alloway once wrote of the artist, describing the small forms of his late works as “shaking loose, floating, flying.”

This final body of work by Gottlieb—which the artist made with paper, newsprint, ink, oil, cardboard, and other materials—is a personal and emotional expression, with the monotypes serving as odes to the many formal breakthroughs of his practice that redefined American art.

Adolph Gottlieb worked his passage to Europe when he was seventeen, after studying briefly at The Art Students League. He spent six months in Paris visiting the Louvre every day and auditing classes at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. Gottlieb made his solo debut in 1930. In 1935, he became a founding member of “The Ten,” a group of artists devoted to expressionist and abstract painting. Eight years later, he would become a founding member of another group of abstract painters, “The New York Artist Painters,” that included Mark Rothko, John Graham, and George L. K. Morris.