Composition

Periodca. 1950 - 1951

MediumOil on prepared masonite

Dimensions23.5 × 37.5 in. (59.7 × 95.3 cm)

InscribedBears a label on the reverse from the Rose Fried Gallery, 40 East 68th Street, New York, NY, inscribed "Simpson-Middleman / Rhodapsis," and a second label on the reverse from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, inscribed "Simpson-Middleman / Composition."

SignedSigned on backboard, "Composition / Simpson-Middleman."

Classifications(not assigned)

Credit LineGift of the Friends of Marshall and Gertrude Simpson, 1980

Object number1980.15.110

DescriptionA geometric abstraction of intersecting lines and patterns that create optical illusions in black, gray, white, red, olive green, and several shades of cream.
Curatorial Remarks"Composition" is an early effort by Simpson-Middleman to combine mathematics and art. Their approach culminated in December 1956 when thirty-three of their abstractions of the night sky and space went on display at the John Heller Gallery in New York City. "The night sky is one of the most beautiful moments in nature. For us, its beauty lies not only in what we see and know about it, but also in those uncertainties in which knowledge and perception are all but lost. The paintings in this exhibition resulted from contemplation and study of that sky." In late 1956, the Boeing Aircraft Company of Seattle, WA, obtained reproduction rights to use Simpson-Middleman paintings in their Scientific American employment advertisements. Seventeen ads featuring eleven paintings appeared between January 1957 and January 1959. Boeing acquired one of the works for their corporate art collection. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Newark Museum also purchased examples of Simpson-Middleman abstractions for their permanent collections. "Composition" is one of roughly 130 finished paintings, sketches, studies, and art experiments by Marshall Simpson working alone, and in partnership with Roslynn Middleman, that the Association acquired from the estate of Gertrude Woodcock Simpson, the artist's widow.NotesMarshall Simpson (1900 - 1958) enjoyed a generally successful career in traditional landscape and marine painting until the 1945 nuclear explosion at Hiroshima, in which "with terrifying impact Nature was revealed in a light which dwarfed any previously held conception." Simpson felt that the imitation of nature concept in art perished in the blast and that at Hiroshima science had opened up a cosmic view of nature beyond the power of the artist to imitate." So after World War II, he started searching for new forms of expression that set aside realism altogether. Simpson also taught in those years at the Newark School of Fine & Industrial Art, where he met Roslynn Middleman (b. 1929). The creative Simpson-Middletown team joined forces about 1949. From the start, they explored joint non-objective class painting in a shared studio in Newark. "Their works have featured mathematical explorations and optical illusions . . ." Simpson-Middleman held their first major show in April 1951 at the Rose Fried Gallery in New York. "Let us assume an area in which the arts and sciences overlap. This assumption is not altogether arbitrary, for there is evidence that such an area exists. The paintings shown here are the present results of explorations in this area. In the course of these explorations the working methods of the scientist have been employed, and the resources of the artist have been used to communicate information that has been obtained." This painting, entitled "Composition," was featured in the Rose Fried Gallery show. Not all critics appreciated their approach. "What they have produced should prove of interest to all the workers in abstraction, although as yet the work seems to me to have more of sheer optical rather than aesthetic appeal and to be a method rather than a fruition." Undaunted, this talented pair of painters continued to refine, enhance and expand their novel mix of science and art until Marshall Simpson's untimely death in 1958 at the age of fifty-eight.

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