Mercedes Molleda, “New American Painting,” translated from Spanish by Cleo Clauson, originally published as “La nueva pintura americana,” in Revista de actualidades, artes y letras 333 (August 30, 1958): 16 (excerpt)

Mercedes Molleda comments on the emblematic touring exhibition La nueva pintura americana shown in Madrid in July and August 1958, after returning to Spain from an eight-month sojourn in New York with her husband, the American artist Norman Narotzky. He invites the viewer to experience Abstract Expressionist paintings in religious terms. Reading them as proposals for contemplative abandon, she brings them into relation with Spanish mysticism. An excerpt of her remarks were published in English in the catalog of the exhibition’s final showing: The New American Painting: as Shown in Eight European Countries 1958–1959. In the world of art, as in the spiritual domain, the steps to gain entrance are: sincerity, humility and love. Each canvas is a confession, as we said at the beginning, an intimate talk with divinity, accepting or negating the exterior world, but always faithful to the most profound identity of conscience.