An Unreleased Laocoon: The First Draft of Clement Greenberg’s “Towards a Newer Laocoon”

Abstract

The present article focuses on the first draft of Clement Greenberg’s essay “Towards a Newer Laocoon,” published in Partisan Review in July–August 1940, and on various documents relating to it, such as Greenberg’s personal correspondence and his notebook, preserved at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. This original draft, with its lucid arguments and pragmatic prose, deals with a variety of issues, including abstract painting’s role in society and the relationship between perception, psychology, and art. Because of the editors’ dissatisfaction with this essay, Greenberg was forced to rewrite it, and, as he complained to a friend, his “Laocoon” was not only cut but also distorted. An analysis of the draft’s main thesis, as well as of the other related documents, reveals important insight into Greenberg’s intellectual formation.