Art - Barnett Newman

Newman's paintings are characterized by the use of great color field and simplicity. He was born in New York in 1905 and was almost obsessed by art in his youth. He was often to be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Newman also signed in for the Art Students League, and also studied at City College in New York, where he became friends with Adolph Gottlieb.
After graduating, Newman started to work at his father's successful factory. It was decided that Barnett Newman worked as a partner for two years and retired after earning $ 100.000. But the company suffered heavily under the Krach in 1929 and Newman had to work another ten years at the financially weakened factory of his father. He also worked part time as an art teacher.
His father suffered from a heart attack in 1937 and retired early, so Barnett Newman devoted himself to art again, but didn't paint much until 1944. Newman didn't want to participate in art projects financed by the government, he hated it and earned more money as a teacher. He met his wife at a meeting of teachers, they didn't get on with each other at first. Newman liked Mozart and defended the composer, while his future wife propagated the music of Wagner. Anna Lee Greenhouse and Barnett Newman married in 1936, in spite of their violent quarrel.
The artist studied ornithology in 1941, birds fascinated him more than art, which disappointed him at that moment. He destroyed his older work three years later and moved to a small flat (in front of the studio of Willem de Kooning) and a period of reconsideration started.
Newman became some sort of advocate for new American art and organized exhibitions. But the production of his own work had stopped, until he painted a small work called 'Onement' in 1948. It's his first painting in his new, mature style. Newman exhibited several similar paintings at his first solo exhibition in 1950. There were many guests (colleagues, friends and journalists), because of his reputation as the advocate for American art. All the guests were negative about his new work and there only one critic (Aline Sciarinen) who wrote a positive article about Barnett Newman. Newman had the courage to organize another solo exhibition in 1951 and the attendance was extremely low. Even his good friends didn't come to the exhibition, although Barnett Newman had been a good friend and a reliable propagandist for their work. His friendship with Gottlieb, Clifford Still and Mark Rothko cooled down after this incident and Newman described the first half of the fifties as the blackest years of his life.
This changed after the exhibition of 'The New American Painting' organized by the Museum of Modern Art. His work became very popular after a retrospective and a Barnett Newman exhibition, organized by French & Company.
Barnett Newman died as a respected and beloved artist in 1970, he's now seen as one of the artists who introduced the principals of minimalist style.