ABSTRACT
In 1937, when Albert Eugene Gallatin, George L. K. Morris, Suzy Frelinghuysen, and Charles G. Shaw exhibited together at the Paul Reinhardt Galleries in New York, not only was the unity of their aesthetic interests established, but also their identity as close friends consolidated. Within the American Abstract Artists (AAA) group, in which they became active members shortly after its formation in 1936, the foursome were anomalous, distinguished by their patrician backgrounds, affluence, and privilege. While similarly given to the cause of abstract art, to reversing its threatened and contested status during the Great Depression of the 1930s, they became known within the group as the "Park Avenue Cubists"—a description which would reinforce their class separateness. In the formal austerity and invention of Shaw's work, Gallatin perceived aesthetic connections to the "severe selection," as he characterized it, of the painting and sculpture he placed on view at the Gallery of Living Art.
