..more significant, perhaps, was the fact that during the war [1940-1945] many of the Surrealists came [from Europe] to America and we were able to s… - Adolph Gottlieb

If we depart form tradition, it is out of knowledge, not innocence.

I was looking for some sort of systematic way of getting down these subjective images and I had always admired, particularly admired the early Italian painters who proceeded the Renaissance and I very much liked some of the altarpieces in which there would be, for example the story of Christ told in a series of boxes.. .And it seemed to me this was a very rational method of conveying something. So I decided to try it. But I was not interested in telling, in giving something its chronological sequence. What I wanted to do was give something, to present what material I was interested in simultaneously so that you would get an instantaneous impact from it. So I made boxes..

People frequently ask why my canvases are compartmentalized. No one ever asks this about a house. A man with a large family would not choose to live in a one-room house.. .I am like a man with a large family and must have many rooms. The children of my imagination occupy the various compartments of my painting, each independent and occupying its own place. At the same time they have the proper atmosphere in which to function together, in harmony and as a unified group. One can say that my paintings are like a house, in which each occupant has a room of his own.’