Lipton’s Journal/January 31, 1955/369

Modern art. Liberals, social democrats, analysands, etc. like abstract painting. It is a rationalization of the world. But non-objective painting they find a bit too “undisciplined” for their taste. Anarchists, cranks, rebels, wild-o’s, dig non-objective painting because non-objective painting is the first expression of the H. Adele[1] who has always been the rebel and anarchist who is secretly drawn to being the lady or the social-democratic equivalent of it possible for her, has this conflict in her painting. Abstract painting leaves her unsatisfied, but she is frightened of non-objective and cannot let go in it. Perhaps with my “new” influence, she may begin to.



note

  1. Adele Morales (1925 – 2015), who he married in April 1954, was Mailer’s second wife. The mother of his daughters Danielle (b. 1957), and Elizabeth Anne (b. 1959), she separated from Mailer in early 1961 a few months after he stabbed her with a penknife, just missing her heart. He pled guilty to felonious assault and was given a suspended sentence. They divorced in 1962.