Contact: Sunny Mindel/ Edward Skyler (212) 788-2958
The next bill before me, Introductory Number 628, sponsored by Council Members Freed, Linares, Nelson and O'Donovan, would add, through the posting of an additional sign, the name "Barnett Newman Triangle" on an existing triangle bounded by Church Street, Avenue of the Americas and Walker Street, in Manhattan.
Barnett Newman was born on January 29, 1905 in New York City and attended public school and City College where he graduated in 1927. A lifelong resident of New York City, Mr. Newman set up a studio in lower Manhattan in the 1940's and became a painter and sculptor of the Abstract Expressionist School.
Mr. Newman's work, along with the works of contemporaries Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Franz Klein, has had a profound and defining influence on the evolution of abstract art, and helped to shift the center of the Western Art world from Europe to the City of New York. He was known as the quintessential New York artist, a man born and raised in New York City, who believed that great art could be made in New York. Barnett Newman died in 1970 at the age of 65.
In view of the contributions he made to the cultural and artistic prestige of New York City it is fitting that an existing triangle bounded by Church Street, Avenue of the Anericas and Walker Street, be named "Barnett Newman Triangle."
For the reasons previously stated, I will now sign the bill.