American painter important as an early and outstanding member of the New York school of Abstract (Abstract Expressionism) Expressionists.

After study at the Art Students League of New York and in Paris, Gottlieb returned to New York in 1923 to attend Parsons School of Design, Cooper Union, and the Educational Alliance Art School.

Early in the 1940s Gottlieb developed his pictograph style, in which cryptic forms, often derived from mythology and primitive art, were used in a rectilinear, gridlike pattern. Characteristic examples are “Evil Omen” (1946) and “Romanesque Façade” (1949; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign). During the 1950s he painted abstract landscapes, which, in turn, led to his second principal style, called “bursts,” in which sunlike, static orb forms float above jagged areas. The lower element was often made up of smears, blots, and other forms characteristic of Action painting. The paintings became simpler and more monumental and used a limited number of colours. Examples are “Triad” (1959), “Expanding” (1962; Art Institute of Chicago), and “Orb” (1964; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Texas).