The Creeks

Michael Goldberg, The Creeks, 1959, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 1981.109.10
Copied Michael Goldberg, The Creeks, 1959, oil on canvas, 52 x 47 3⁄4 in. (132.1 x 121.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 1981.109.10

Artwork Details

Title
The Creeks
Artist
Date
1959
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
52 x 47 3⁄4 in. (132.1 x 121.3 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Abstract
Object Number
1981.109.10
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1981.109.10

Artwork Description

The Creeks is named for a sixty-acre estate in East Hampton, New York, which served as a summer gathering place for abstract painters in the 1950s, although it contains no recognizable references to either the house or the extensive gardens. Instead, reading meaning involves examining the way black is applied on top of blue and the insistently horizontal and vertical laying down of white, green, and yellow that give structure and reveal which strokes came first. Twenty years after painting The Creeks, Goldberg said he finally realized that he had always been concerned with “the human architectural response to nature and nature itself.”

Modern Masters: Midcentury Abstraction from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2008