HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II
art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...
in American painting, developed in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the Western
art world The art world comprises everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, buying and selling fine art. It is recognized that there are many art worlds, defined either by location or alte ...
, a role formerly filled by
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
. Although the term "abstract expressionism" was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates, it had been first used in Germany in 1919 in the magazine '' Der Sturm'', regarding
German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
. In the United States,
Alfred Barr Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...
was the first to use this term in 1929 in relation to works by
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
.


Style

Technically, an important predecessor is
surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
, with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic, or subconscious creation.
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of
André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...
,
Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...
, and
David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
. The newer research tends to put the exile-surrealist
Wolfgang Paalen Wolfgang Robert Paalen (July 22, 1905 in Vienna, Austria – September 24, 1959 in Taxco, Mexico) was an Austrian-Mexican painter, sculptor, and art philosopher. A member of the Abstraction-Création group from 1934 to 1935, he joined the influ ...
in the position of the artist and theoretician who fostered the theory of the viewer-dependent possibility space through his paintings and his magazine '' DYN''. Paalen considered ideas of
quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
, as well as idiosyncratic interpretations of the totemic vision and the spatial structure of native-Indian painting from British Columbia and prepared the ground for the new spatial vision of the young American abstracts. His long essay ''Totem Art'' (1943) had considerable influence on such artists as
Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She ...
,
Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...
, Pollock,
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
and
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
. Around 1944 Barnett Newman tried to explain America's newest art movement and included a list of "the men in the new movement." Paalen is mentioned twice; other artists mentioned are Gottlieb, Rothko, Pollock, Hofmann, Baziotes, Gorky and others.
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
is mentioned with a question mark. Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist
Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all-over" look of Pollock's drip paintings. The movement's name is derived from the combination of the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German
Expressionists Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as
Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects suc ...
, the
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
, and Synthetic
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
. Additionally, it has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, nihilistic.Shapiro, David/Cecile (2000), "Abstract Expressionism: The politics of apolitical painting." pp. 189–190 In: Frascina, Francis (2000–1): ''Pollock and After: The Critical Debate''. 2nd ed. London: Routledge In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even to work that is neither especially abstract nor expressionist. California abstract expressionist Jay Meuser, who typically painted in the non-objective style, wrote about his painting ''Mare Nostrum'', "It is far better to capture the glorious spirit of the sea than to paint all of its tiny ripples." Pollock's energetic "
action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
s", with their "busy" feel, are different, both technically and aesthetically, from the violent and grotesque ''Women'' series of
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
's figurative paintings and the rectangles of color in Rothko's Color Field paintings (which are not what would usually be called expressionist, and which Rothko denied were abstract). Yet all four artists are classified as abstract expressionists. Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early 20th century such as
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
. Although it is true that spontaneity or the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists' works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. With artists such as
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
, Kandinsky, Emma Kunz, and later on Rothko, Newman, and
Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...
, abstract art clearly implied expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious, and the mind. Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American
social realism Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...
had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, but also by the Mexican muralists such as
David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
and
Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of these painters. Abstract expressionism arose during the war and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in New York such as The Art of This Century Gallery. The post-war
McCarthy era McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...
was a time of artistic
censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
in the United States, but if the subject matter were totally abstract then it would be seen as apolitical, and therefore safe. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders. While the movement is closely associated with painting,
collagist Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...
Anne Ryan and certain sculptors in particular were also integral to abstract expressionism. David Smith, and his wife Dorothy Dehner,
Herbert Ferber Herbert Ferber (1906 – 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionist, sculptor and painter, and a "driving force of the New York School." Background Herbert Ferber Silvers was born on April 30, 1906, in New York City. In 1923, he beg ...
,
Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...
,
Ibram Lassaw Ibram Lassaw (May 4, 1913 – December 30, 2003) was a Russian-American sculptor, known for non-objective construction in brazed metals. Biography Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian émigré parents, he went to the U.S. in 1921. H ...
, Theodore Roszak, Phillip Pavia, Mary Callery, Richard Stankiewicz, Louise Bourgeois, and
Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast ...
in particular were some of the sculptors considered as being important members of the movement. In addition, the artists David Hare, John Chamberlain,
James Rosati James Rosati (1911 in Washington, Pennsylvania 1911 – 1988 in New York City) was an American abstract sculptor. He is best known for creating an outdoor sculpture in New York: a stainless steel ''Ideogram.'' Life Born near Pittsburgh, R ...
, Mark di Suvero, and sculptors
Richard Lippold Richard Lippold (May 3, 1915 – August 22, 2002) was an American sculptor, known for his geometric constructions using wire as a medium. Life Lippold was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied at the University of Chicago, and graduated from ...
, Raoul Hague,
George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...
,
Reuben Nakian Reuben Nakian (August 10, 1897, College Point, New York – December 4, 1986, Stamford, Connecticut) was an American sculptor and teacher of Armenian extraction. His works' recurring themes are from Greek and Roman mythology. Noted works inc ...
, and even Tony Smith,
Seymour Lipton Seymour Lipton (6 November 1903 – 15 December 1986) was an American abstract expressionist sculptor. He was a member of the New York School who gained widespread recognition in the 1950s. He initially trained as a dentist but focused on s ...
,
Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmm ...
, and several othersMarika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists''
(New York School Press, 2000.) p.11–12
were integral parts of the abstract expressionist movement. Many of the sculptors listed participated in the
Ninth Street Show The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).
, a famous exhibition curated by
Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...
on East Ninth Street in New York City in 1951. Besides the painters and sculptors of the period the New York School of abstract expressionism also generated a number of supportive poets, including
Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
and photographers such as
Aaron Siskind Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if ...
and
Fred McDarrah Frederick William McDarrah (November 5, 1926 – November 6, 2007) was an American staff photographer for '' The Village Voice'' and an author. He is best known for documenting the cultural phenomenon known as the Beat Generation from its ince ...
, (whose book ''The Artist's World in Pictures'' documented the New York School during the 1950s), and filmmakers—notably
Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...
—as well. Although the abstract expressionist school spread quickly throughout the United States, the epicenters of this style were New York City and the San Francisco Bay area of California.


Art critics of the post–World War II era

In the 1940s there were not only few galleries ( The Art of This Century, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Julien Levy Gallery and a few others) but also few critics who were willing to follow the work of the New York Vanguard. There were also a few artists with a literary background, among them Robert Motherwell and
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
, who functioned as critics as well. While the New York
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
was still relatively unknown by the late 1940s, most of the artists who have become household names today had their well-established patron critics:
Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
advocated
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
and the color field painters like
Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...
,
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
,
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
,
Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker. Early life and education Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New York ...
and
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
;
Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for ...
seemed to prefer the action painters such as
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
and
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
, as well as the seminal paintings of
Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...
; Thomas B. Hess, the managing editor of ''
ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...
'', championed
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
. The new critics elevated their protégés by casting other artists as "followers" or ignoring those who did not serve their promotional goal. In 1958,
Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
became the first American painter since Whistler (1895) to win top prize at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
.
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
, a late member of the Uptown Group, wrote catalogue forewords and reviews, and by the late 1940s became an exhibiting artist at Betty Parsons Gallery. His first solo show was in 1948. Soon after his first exhibition, Barnett Newman remarked in one of the Artists' Sessions at Studio 35: "We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image." Utilizing his writing skills, Newman fought every step of the way to reinforce his newly established image as an artist and to promote his work. An example is his letter on April 9, 1955, "Letter to Sidney Janis: — it is true that Rothko talks the fighter. He fights, however, to submit to the philistine world. My struggle against bourgeois society has involved the total rejection of it." Strangely, the person thought to have had most to do with the promotion of this style was a New York Trotskyist: Clement Greenberg. As long-time art critic for the ''
Partisan Review ''Partisan Review'' (''PR'') was a small-circulation quarterly "little magazine" dealing with literature, politics, and cultural commentary published in New York City. The magazine was launched in 1934 by the Communist Party USA–affiliated Joh ...
'' and ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'', he became an early and literate proponent of abstract expressionism. The well-heeled artist Robert Motherwell joined Greenberg in promoting a style that fit the political climate and the intellectual rebelliousness of the era. Greenberg proclaimed abstract expressionism and Pollock in particular as the epitome of aesthetic value. He supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds as simply the best painting of its day and the culmination of an art tradition going back via
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
and Cézanne to Monet, in which painting became ever-'purer' and more concentrated in what was 'essential' to it, the making of marks on a flat surface. Pollock's work has always polarised critics. Rosenberg spoke of the transformation of painting into an existential drama in Pollock's work, in which "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event". "The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint'. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value—political, aesthetic, moral." One of the most vocal critics of abstract expressionism at the time was ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' art critic
John Canaday John Edwin Canaday (February 1, 1907 – July 19, 1985) was a leading American art critic, author and art historian. Early life and education John Canaday was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, to Franklin and Agnes F. (Musson) Canaday. His family mov ...
.
Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...
and
Leo Steinberg Leo Steinberg (July 9, 1920 – March 13, 2011) was a Russian-born American art critic and art historian. Life Steinberg was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, the son of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, a Jewish lawyer and Socialist Revolutionary Party polit ...
along with Greenberg and Rosenberg were important art historians of the post-war era who voiced support for abstract expressionism. During the early-to-mid-sixties younger art critics Michael Fried,
Rosalind Krauss Rosalind Epstein Krauss (born November 30, 1941) is an American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Krauss is known for her scholarship in 20th-century painting, sculpture and photography. As a cr ...
, and Robert Hughes added considerable insights into the critical dialectic that continues to grow around abstract expressionism.


History


World War II and the Post-War period

During the period leading up to and during World War II, modernist artists, writers, and poets, as well as important collectors and dealers, fled Europe and the onslaught of the Nazis for safe haven in the United States. Many of those who didn't flee perished. Among the artists and collectors who arrived in New York during the war (some with help from
Varian Fry Varian Mackey Fry (October 15, 1907 – September 13, 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France that helped approximately 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust ...
) were Hans Namuth,
Yves Tanguy Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy (January 5, 1900 – January 15, 1955), known as just Yves Tanguy (, ), was a French surrealist painter. Biography Tanguy, the son of a retired navy captain, was born January 5, 1900, at the Ministry of Naval Aff ...
, Kay Sage,
Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...
,
Jimmy Ernst Hans-Ulrich Ernst (June 24, 1920 – February 6, 1984), known as Jimmy Ernst, was an American painter born in Germany. Early life Jimmy Ernst was born in 1920 in Cologne, Germany, the son of German Surrealist painter Max Ernst and Luise St ...
,
Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with ...
,
Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...
,
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
,
André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...
,
Roberto Matta Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren (; November 11, 1911 – November 23, 2002), better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art. Bio ...
,
André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first '' Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...
,
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
,
Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of ...
,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...
, and
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
. A few artists, notably
Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primar ...
, and
Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist grou ...
remained in France and survived. The post-war period left the capitals of Europe in upheaval, with an urgency to economically and physically rebuild and to politically regroup. In Paris, formerly the center of European culture and capital of the art world, the climate for art was a disaster, and New York replaced Paris as the new center of the art world. Post-war Europe saw the continuation of
Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
,
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
,
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
, and the works of Matisse. Also in Europe,
Art brut Art Brut are a Berlin-based English and German indie rock band. Their debut album, '' Bang Bang Rock & Roll'', was released on 30 May 2005, with its follow up, '' It's a Bit Complicated'', released on 25 June 2007. Named after French painter J ...
, and
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
or
Tachisme __NOTOC__ Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain) is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the movement in 19 ...
(the European equivalent to abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation. Serge Poliakoff,
Nicolas de Staël Nicolas de Staël (; January 5, 1914 – March 16, 1955) was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles. Early life ...
,
Georges Mathieu Georges Mathieu (27 January 1921 – 10 June 2012) was a French abstract painter, art theorist, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is considered one of the fathers of European lyrical abstraction, a trend of informalism. B ...
,
Vieira da Silva Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (13 June 1908 – 6 March 1992) was a Portuguese abstract painter. She was considered a leading member of the European abstract expressionism movement known as Art Informel. Her works feature complex interiors and c ...
,
Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...
, Yves Klein,
Pierre Soulages Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages (; 24 December 1919 – 26 October 2022) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are held ...
and Jean Messagier, among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting. In the United States, a new generation of American artists began to emerge and to dominate the world stage, and they were called ''Abstract Expressionists''.


Gorky, Hofmann, and Graham

The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American abstract expressionism, a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from Matisse, Picasso, Surrealism, Miró,
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
,
Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...
, and early Modernism via great teachers in America such as
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
from Germany and
John D. Graham John D. Graham (December 27, 1886, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American modernist and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. Born Ivan Gratianovitch ...
from Ukraine. Graham's influence on American art during the early 1940s was particularly visible in the work of Gorky, de Kooning, Pollock, and Richard Pousette-Dart among others. Gorky's contributions to American and world art are difficult to overestimate. His work as lyrical abstractionDorment, Richard
"Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective at Tate Modern, review"
''The Daily Telegraph'', February 8, 2010. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
was a "new language. He "lit the way for two generations of American artists". The painterly spontaneity of mature works such as ''The Liver is the Cock's Comb'', ''The Betrothal II'', and ''One Year the Milkweed'' immediately prefigured Abstract expressionism, and leaders in the New York School have acknowledged Gorky's considerable influence. The early work of Hyman Bloom was also influential. American artists also benefited from the presence of
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...
, Max Ernst, and the
André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first '' Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...
group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and
Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with ...
's gallery The Art of This Century, as well as other factors. Hans Hofmann in particular as teacher, mentor, and artist was both important and influential to the development and success of abstract expressionism in the United States. Among Hofmann's protégés was
Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
, who became an enormously influential voice for American painting, and among his students was Lee Krasner, who introduced her teacher, Hofmann, to her husband, Jackson Pollock.


Pollock and Abstract influences

During the late 1940s, Jackson Pollock's radical approach to painting revolutionized the potential for all Contemporary art that followed him. To some extent, Pollock realized that the journey toward making a work of art was as important as the work of art itself. Like Picasso's innovative reinventions of painting and sculpture near the turn of the century via
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
and constructed sculpture, with influences as disparate as Navajo people, Navajo sand paintings, surrealism, Jungian analysis, and Mexican mural art, Pollock redefined what it was to produce art. His move away from easel painting and conventionality was a liberating signal to the artists of his era and to all that came after. Artists realized that Jackson Pollock's process—the placing of unstretched raw canvas on the floor where it could be attacked from all four sides using artist materials and industrial materials; linear skeins of paint dripped and thrown; drawing, staining, brushing; imagery and non-imagery—essentially took art-making beyond any prior boundary. Abstract expressionism in general expanded and developed the definitions and possibilities that artists had available for the creation of new works of art. The other abstract expressionists followed Pollock's breakthrough with new breakthroughs of their own. In a sense the innovations of Pollock, Willem de Kooning, de Kooning,
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
, Mark Rothko, Rothko, Philip Guston,
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
,
Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...
,
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart,
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
, Peter Voulkos, and others opened the floodgates to the diversity and scope of all the art that followed them. The radical Anti-Formalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s including Fluxus, Neo-Dada, Conceptual art, and the feminist art movement can be traced to the innovations of abstract expressionism. Rereadings into abstract art, done by art historians such as Linda Nochlin, Griselda Pollock and Catherine de Zegher critically shows, however, that pioneer women artists who have produced major innovations in modern art had been ignored by the official accounts of its history, but finally began to achieve long overdue recognition in the wake of the abstract expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Abstract expressionism emerged as a major art movement in New York City during the 1950s and thereafter several leading art galleries began to include the abstract expressionists in exhibitions and as regulars in their rosters. Some of those prominent 'uptown' galleries included: the Charles Egan Gallery, the Sidney Janis, Sidney Janis Gallery, the Betty Parsons Gallery, the Kootz Gallery, the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, the Stable Gallery, the Leo Castelli, Leo Castelli Gallery as well as others; and several downtown galleries known at the time as the Tenth Street galleries exhibited many emerging younger artists working in the abstract expressionist vein.


Action painting

Action painting was a style widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms
action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
and abstract expressionism interchangeably). A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French tachisme. The term was coined by the American critic
Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for ...
in 1952 and signaled a major shift in the aesthetic perspective of New York School painters and critics. According to Rosenberg the canvas was "an arena in which to act". While abstract expressionists such as
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
,
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
and
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
had long been outspoken in their view of a painting as an arena within which to come to terms with the act of creation, earlier critics sympathetic to their cause, like
Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
, focused on their works' "objectness." To Greenberg, it was the physicality of the paintings' clotted and oil-caked surfaces that was the key to understanding them as documents of the artists' Existentialism, existential struggle. Rosenberg's critique shifted the emphasis from the object to the struggle itself, with the finished painting being only the physical manifestation, a kind of residue, of the actual work of art, which was in the act or process of the painting's creation. This spontaneous activity was the "action" of the painter, through arm and wrist movement, painterly gestures, brushstrokes, thrown paint, splashed, stained, scumbled and dripped. The painter would sometimes let the paint drip onto the canvas, while rhythmically dancing, or even standing in the canvas, sometimes letting the paint fall according to the subconscious mind, thus letting the Unconscious mind, unconscious part of the Psyche (psychology), psyche assert and express itself. All this, however, is difficult to explain or interpret because it is a supposed unconscious manifestation of the act of pure creation. In practice, the term abstract expressionism is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic
action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
s, with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to De Kooning's violent and grotesque ''Women'' series. ''Woman V'' is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings, ''Woman I'', in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian
Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...
saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme; ''Woman II'', ''Woman III'' and ''Woman IV''. During the summer of 1952, spent at East Hampton (town), New York, East Hampton, de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on ''Woman I'' by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time. The ''Woman series'' are decidedly figurative paintings. Another important artist is
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
. As with Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists, Kline was labelled an "Action Painting, action painter" because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brushstrokes and use of canvas; as demonstrated by his painting ''Number 2'' (1954). Automatic writing was an important vehicle for action painters such as Kline (in his black and white paintings), Pollock, Mark Tobey and Cy Twombly, who used gesture, surface, and line to create calligraphic, linear symbols and skeins that resemble language, and resonate as powerful manifestations from the Collective unconscious.
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
in his ''Elegy to the Spanish Republic'' series painted powerful black and white paintings using gesture, surface and symbol evoking powerful emotional charges. Meanwhile, other action painters, notably de Kooning, Gorky, Norman Bluhm, Joan Mitchell, and James Brooks (painter), James Brooks, used imagery via either abstract landscape or as expressionistic visions of the figure to articulate their highly personal and powerful evocations. James Brooks' paintings were particularly poetic and highly prescient in relationship to
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
that became prominent in the late 1960s and the 1970s.


Color field

Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...
,
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
,
Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker. Early life and education Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New York ...
and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
's work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what
Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
termed the Color field direction of abstract expressionism. Both Hans Hofmann and
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
can be comfortably described as practitioners of Action painting and Color field painting. In the 1940s Richard Pousette-Dart's tightly constructed imagery often depended upon themes of mythology and mysticism; as did the paintings of Gottlieb, and Pollock in that decade as well. Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of abstract expressionism, especially the work of Rothko, Still, Newman, Motherwell, Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt and several series of paintings by Joan Miró. Greenberg perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The Color Field painters sought to rid their art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like Motherwell, Still, Rothko, Gottlieb,
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis,
Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
, and especially Ad Reinhardt and Barnett Newman, whose masterpiece ''Vir heroicus sublimis'' is in the collection of MoMA, used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general, these artists eliminated recognizable imagery, in the case of Rothko and Gottlieb sometimes using symbols and signs as a replacement of imagery. Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of modern art, artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image. In distinction to the emotional energy and gestural surface marks of abstract expressionists such as Pollock and de Kooning, the Color Field painters initially appeared to be cool and austere, effacing the individual mark in favor of large, flat areas of color, which these artists considered to be the essential nature of visual abstraction, along with the actual shape of the canvas, which later in the 1960s Frank Stella in particular achieved in unusual ways with combinations of curved and straight edges. However, Color Field painting has proven to be both sensual and deeply expressive albeit in a different way from gestural abstract expressionism. Although abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the New York School, and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an "all-over" approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges). The canvas as the ''arena'' became a credo of Action painting, while the Picture plane#Integrity of the picture plane, ''integrity of the picture plane'' became a credo of the Color field painters. Younger artists began exhibiting their abstract expressionist related paintings during the 1950s as well including Alfred Leslie, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, Milton Resnick, Michael Goldberg (painter), Michael Goldberg, Norman Bluhm, Grace Hartigan, Friedel Dzubas, and Robert Goodnough among others. Although Pollock is closely associated with Action Painting because of his style, technique, and his painterly ''touch'' and his physical application of paint, art critics have likened Pollock to both Action painting and color field painting. Another critical view advanced by Greenberg connects Pollock's allover canvasses to the large-scale ''Water Lilies'' of Claude Monet done during the 1920s. Art critics such as Michael Fried, Greenberg and others have observed that the overall feeling in Pollock's most famous works – his ''drip'' paintings – read as vast fields of built-up linear elements. They note that these works often read as vast complexes of similarly-valued paint skeins and all-over fields of color and drawing, and are related to the mural-sized Monets which are similarly constructed of close-valued brushed and scumbled marks that also read as fields of color and drawing. Pollock's use of all-over composition lend a philosophical and a physical connection to the way the color field painters like Newman, Rothko and Still construct their unbroken and in Still's case broken surfaces. In several paintings that Pollock painted after his classic ''drip'' painting period of 1947–1950, he used the technique of staining fluid oil paint and house paint into raw canvas. During 1951 he produced a series of semi-figurative black stain paintings, and in 1952 he produced stain paintings using color. In his November 1952 exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York City Pollock showed ''Number 12, 1952'', a large, masterful stain painting that resembles a brightly colored stained landscape (with an overlay of broadly dripped dark paint); the painting was acquired from the exhibition by Nelson Rockefeller for his personal collection. While
Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...
is considered to be one of the founding fathers of abstract expressionism and a surrealist, he was also one of the first painters of the New York School who used the technique of ''staining.'' Gorky created broad fields of vivid, open, unbroken color that he used in many of his paintings as ''grounds.'' In Gorky's most effective and accomplished paintings between the years 1941–1948, he consistently used intense stained fields of color, often letting the paint run and drip, under and around his familiar lexicon of organic and biomorphic shapes and delicate lines. Another abstract expressionist whose works in the 1940s call to mind the stain paintings of the 1960s and the 1970s is James Brooks (painter), James Brooks. Brooks regularly used stain as a technique in his paintings from the late 1940s. Brooks began diluting his oil paint in order to have fluid colors with which to pour and drip and stain into the mostly raw canvas that he used. These works often combined calligraphy and abstract shapes. During the final three decades of his career, Sam Francis' style of large-scale bright abstract expressionism was closely associated with Color field painting. His paintings straddled both camps within the abstract expressionist rubric, Action painting and Color Field painting. Having seen Pollock's 1951 paintings of thinned black oil paint stained into raw canvas, Frankenthaler began to produce ''stain paintings'' in varied oil colors on raw canvas in 1952. Her most famous painting from that period is ''Mountains and Sea''. She is one of the originators of the Color Field movement that emerged in the late 1950s. Frankenthaler also studied with
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
. Hofmann's paintings are a symphony of color as seen in ''The Gate,'' 1959–1960. He was renowned not only as an artist but also as a teacher of art, both in his native Germany and later in the US. Hofmann, who came to the United States from Germany in the early 1930s, brought with him the legacy of Modernism. As a young artist in pre-First World War Paris, Hofmann worked with Robert Delaunay, and he knew firsthand the innovative work of both Picasso and Matisse. Matisse's work had an enormous influence on him, and on his understanding of the expressive language of color and the potentiality of abstraction. Hofmann was one of the first theorists of color field painting, and his theories were influential to artists and to critics, particularly to Clement Greenberg, as well as to others during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1953 Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland were both profoundly influenced by Helen Frankenthaler's stain paintings after visiting her studio in New York City. Returning to Washington, DC., they began to produce the major works that created the ''color field movement'' in the late 1950s.Fenton, Terry.
Morris Louis
. sharecom.ca. Retrieved December 8, 2008
In 1972 then Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler said:


In the 1960s after abstract expressionism

In Abstract art, abstract painting during the 1950s and 1960s, several new directions, like the Hard-edge painting exemplified by John McLaughlin (artist), John McLaughlin, emerged. Meanwhile, as a reaction against the subjectivism of abstract expressionism, other forms of Geometric abstraction began to appear in artist studios and in radical
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
circles. Greenberg became the voice of ''Post-painterly abstraction;'' by curating an influential exhibition of new painting that toured important art museums throughout the United States in 1964. Color field painting, Hard-edge painting and
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
emerged as radical new directions.


Abstract expressionism and the Cold War

Since the mid-1970s it has been argued that the style attracted the attention, in the early 1950s, of the CIA, who saw it as representative of the US as a haven of free thought and free markets, as well as a challenge to both the socialist realist styles prevalent in communism, communist nations and the dominance of the European art markets. The book by Frances Stonor Saunders, ''The Cultural Cold War—The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters'', (published in the UK as ''Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War'') details how the CIA financed and organized the promotion of American abstract expressionists as part of cultural imperialism via the Congress for Cultural Freedom from 1950 to 1967. Notably Robert Motherwell's series ''Elegy to the Spanish Republic'' addressed some of those political issues. Tom Braden, founding chief of the CIA's International Organizations Division (IOD) and ex-executive secretary of the Museum of Modern Art said in an interview, "I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War." Against this revisionist tradition, an essay by Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', called ''Revisiting the Revisionists: The Modern, Its Critics and the Cold War'', asserts that much of that information concerning what was happening on the American art scene during the 1940s and 50s, as well as the revisionists' interpretation of it, is false or decontextualized. Other books on the subject include ''Art in the Cold War'', by Christine Lindey, which also describes the art of the Soviet Union at the same time, and ''Pollock and After'', edited by Francis Frascina, which reprinted the Kimmelman article.


Consequences

Canadians, Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923–2002), a member of the Montreal-based surrealist-inspired group Les Automatistes, helped introduce a related style of abstract impressionism to the Parisian art world from 1949. Michel Tapié's groundbreaking book, ''Un Art Autre'' (1952), was also enormously influential in this regard. Tapié was also a curator and exhibition organizer who promoted the works of Pollock and Hans Hofmann in Europe. By the 1960s, the movement's initial effect had been assimilated, yet its methods and proponents remained highly influential in art, affecting profoundly the work of many artists who followed. Abstract expressionism preceded
Tachisme __NOTOC__ Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain) is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the movement in 19 ...
, Color Field painting,
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
, Fluxus, Pop Art, Minimalism, Postminimalism, Neo-expressionism, and the other movements of the sixties and seventies and it influenced all those later movements that evolved. Movements which were direct responses to, and rebellions against abstract expressionism began with Hard-edge painting (Frank Stella, Robert Indiana and others) and Pop Art, Pop artists, notably Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein who achieved prominence in the US, accompanied by Richard Hamilton (artist), Richard Hamilton in Britain. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in the US formed a bridge between abstract expressionism and Pop art. Minimalism was exemplified by artists such as Donald Judd, Robert Mangold and
Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...
. However, many painters, such as Jules Olitski, Joan Mitchell and Antoni Tàpies continued to work in the abstract expressionist style for many years, extending and expanding its visual and philosophical implications, as many abstract artists continue to do today, in styles described as
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
, Neo-expressionism, Neo-expressionist and others. In the years after World War II, a group of New York artists started one of the first true schools of artists in America, bringing about a new era in American artwork: abstract expressionism. This led to the American art boom that brought about styles such as Pop Art. This also helped to make New York City, New York into a cultural and artistic hub.


Major sculpture

File:Stankiewicz detail.jpg, Richard Stankiewicz, Detail of ''Figure''; 1956; steel, iron, and concrete; in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden File:Calder-redmobile.jpg, Alexander Calder, ''Red Mobile (sculpture), Mobile,'' 1956, Painted sheet metal and metal rods, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts File:John Chamberlain at the Hirshhorn.jpg, John Chamberlain, ''S'', 1959, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. File:KMM Noguchi 01.JPG,
Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...
, ''The Cry'', 1959, Kröller-Müller Museum Sculpture Park, Otterlo, Netherlands File:Spider. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.JPG, Louise Bourgeois, ''Maman (sculpture), Maman,'' 1999, outside Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Museo Guggenheim


List of abstract expressionists


Abstract expressionist artists

: Significant artists whose mature work defined American abstract expressionism: * Albert Alcalay (1917–2008) * Charles Alston (1907–1977) * Ruth Asawa (1926–2013)Marika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''
(New York School Press, 2000),
* Alice Baber (1928–1982) * William Baziotes (1912–1963)Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of History
/ref> * James Bishop (artist), James Bishop (1927–2021) * Norman Bluhm (1921–1999) * Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) * Ernest Briggs (artist), Ernest Briggs (1923–1984) * James Brooks (painter), James Brooks (1906–1992) * David Budd (1927–1991) * Fritz Bultman (1919–1985) * Hans Burkhardt (1904–1994) * Jack Bush (1909–1977) * Charles Cajori (1921–2013) * Lawrence Calcagno (1913–1993) * Alexander Calder (1898–1976) * Nicolas Carone (1917–2010) * Giorgio Cavallon (1904–1989) * John Angus Chamberlain, John Chamberlain (1927–2011) * Edward Clark (artist), Ed Clark (1926–2019) *
Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmm ...
(1903–1972) * Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) *
Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...
(1901–1985) * Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) *
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
(1904–1997) * Beauford Delaney (1901–1979) * Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922–1993) * Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993) * Mark di Suvero (born 1933) * James Budd Dixon (1900–1967) * Enrico Donati (1909–2008) * Edward Dugmore (1915–1996) * Friedel Dzubas (1915–1994) *
Jimmy Ernst Hans-Ulrich Ernst (June 24, 1920 – February 6, 1984), known as Jimmy Ernst, was an American painter born in Germany. Early life Jimmy Ernst was born in 1920 in Cologne, Germany, the son of German Surrealist painter Max Ernst and Luise St ...
(1920–1984) *
Herbert Ferber Herbert Ferber (1906 – 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionist, sculptor and painter, and a "driving force of the New York School." Background Herbert Ferber Silvers was born on April 30, 1906, in New York City. In 1923, he beg ...
(1906–1991) * John Ferren (1905–1970) * Perle Fine (1905–1988) * Sam Francis (1923–1994) * Jane Frank (1918–1986) * Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) * Sonia Gechtoff (1926–2018) * Michael Goldberg (painter), Michael Goldberg (1924–2007) * Robert Goodnough (1917–2010) *
Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...
(1904–1948) * Joseph Goto (1916–1994) *
Adolph Gottlieb Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker. Early life and education Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New York ...
(1903–1974) * Morris Graves (1910–2001) * Cleve Gray (1918–2004) * Philip Guston (1913–1980) * Raoul Hague (1904–1993) * David Hare (1917–1992) * Grace Hartigan (1922–2008) *
Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...
(1880–1966) * Paul Horiuchi (1906–1999) * John Hultberg (1922–2005) * Paul Jenkins (United States painter), Paul Jenkins (1923–2012) * Gerome Kamrowski (1914–2004) * Matsumi Kanemitsu (1922–1992) * Minoru Kawabata (1911–2001) * James Kelly (artist), James Kelly (1913–2003) * Earl Kerkam (1891–1965) *
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
(1910–1962) * Albert Kotin (1907–1980) * Lee Krasner (1908–1984) * Walter Kuhlman (1918–2009) *
Ibram Lassaw Ibram Lassaw (May 4, 1913 – December 30, 2003) was a Russian-American sculptor, known for non-objective construction in brazed metals. Biography Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian émigré parents, he went to the U.S. in 1921. H ...
(1913–2003) * Alfred Leslie (born 1927) * John Harrison Levee (1924–2017) * Norman Lewis (artist), Norman Lewis (1901–1979) *
Richard Lippold Richard Lippold (May 3, 1915 – August 22, 2002) was an American sculptor, known for his geometric constructions using wire as a medium. Life Lippold was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied at the University of Chicago, and graduated from ...
(1915–2002) *
Seymour Lipton Seymour Lipton (6 November 1903 – 15 December 1986) was an American abstract expressionist sculptor. He was a member of the New York School who gained widespread recognition in the 1950s. He initially trained as a dentist but focused on s ...
(1903–1986) * Frank Lobdell (1921–2013)Jesse Hamlin, 'Frank Lobdell, influential Bay Area painter, dies'
''SF Gate'', Thursday, 19 December 2013; retvd. 29 July 2014
* Morris Louis (1912–1962) * Conrad Marca-Relli (1913–2000) * Nicholas Marsicano (1908–1991) * Mercedes Matter (1913–2001) * Hugh Mesibov (1916–2016) * Fred Mitchell (artist), Fred Mitchell (1923-2013) * Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) *
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
(1915–1991) *
Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast ...
(1899–1988) *
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
(1905–1970) *
Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...
(1904–1988) * Kenzo Okada (1902–1982) * John Opper (1908–1994) * Charlotte Park (artist), Charlotte Park (1910–2010) * Ray Parker (painter), Ray Parker (1922–1990) * Phillip Pavia (1912–2005) *
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
(1912–1956) * Fuller Potter (1910–1990) * Richard Pousette-Dart (1916–1992) * Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) * Milton Resnick (1917–2004) * Robert Richenburg (1917–2006) *
George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...
(1904–2002) * Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923–2002) * William Ronald (1926–1998) *
James Rosati James Rosati (1911 in Washington, Pennsylvania 1911 – 1988 in New York City) was an American abstract sculptor. He is best known for creating an outdoor sculpture in New York: a stainless steel ''Ideogram.'' Life Born near Pittsburgh, R ...
(1911–1988) * Ralph Rosenborg (1913–1992) * Theodore Roszak (1907–1981) *
Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
(1903–1970) * Anne Ryan (1889–1954) * Louis Schanker (1903–1981) * Jon Schueler (1916–1992) * Charles Seliger (1926–2009) * Harold Shapinsky (1925–2004) * Thomas Sills (1914–2000) * Janet Sobel (1893–1968) * David Smith (1906–1965) * Theodoros Stamos (1922–1997) * Richard Stankiewicz (1922–1983) * Joe Stefanelli (painter), Joe Stefanelli (1921–2017) * Hedda Sterne (1910–2011) *
Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...
(1904–1980) * George Stillman (1921–1997) * Reuben Tam (1916–1991) * Alma Thomas (1891–1978) *
Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
(1890–1976) * Bradley Walker Tomlin (1899–1953) * Cy Twombly (1928–2011) * Jack Tworkov (1900–1982) * Esteban Vicente (1903–2001) * Peter Voulkos (1924–2002) * Corinne Michelle West (1908–1991) * John von Wicht (1888–1970) * Hale Woodruff (1900–1980) * Emerson Woelffer (1914–2003) * Taro Yamamoto (artist), Taro Yamamoto (1919–1994) * Manouchehr Yektai (1922–2019)


Other artists

: Significant artists whose mature work relates to the American abstract expressionist movement: * Satoru Abe (born 1926) * Bumpei Akaji (1921–2002) * Olga Albizu (1924–2005) * Karel Appel (1921–2006) * Mino Argento (born 1927) * Rosemarie Beck (1923–2003) * William Brice (1921–2008) * Alexander Bogen (1916–2010) * Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897–1968) * Gretna Campbell (1922–1987) * Mary Callery (1903–1977) * Chu Teh-Chun (1920–2014) * Edward Clark (artist), Edward Clark (1926–2019) * Alfred L. Copley (1910–1992) (aka L. Alcopley) * Edward Corbett (artist), Edward Corbett (1919–1971) * Jean-Michel Coulon (1920–2014) * Sari Dienes (1898–1992) * Jacques Démoulin (1905-1991) * Isami Doi (1903–1965) * Lynne Mapp Drexler (1928–1999) *
Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...
(1901–1985) * Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) * Alice Garver (1924–1966) * Herbert Gentry (1919–2003)Pattan, S. F. (1998) African American Art, New York: Oxford University Press * Sam Gilliam (1933–2022) * Joseph Glasco (1925–1996) *
John D. Graham John D. Graham (December 27, 1886, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American modernist and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. Born Ivan Gratianovitch ...
(1881–1961) * Stephen Greene (artist), Stephen Greene (1918–1999) * Elaine Hamilton-O'Neal, Elaine Hamilton (1920–2010) * Hans Hartung (1904–1989) * Saburo Hasegawa (1906–1957) * Al Held (1928–2005) * Raymond Hendler (1923–1998) * Gino Hollander (1924–2015) * John Hoyland (1934–2011) * Ralph Iwamoto (1927–2013) * William Ivey (painter), William Ivey (1919–1992) * Jasper Johns (born 1930) * Karl Kasten (1916–2010) * Keichi Kimura (1914–1988) * Sueko Kimura (1912–2001) * Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) * Frances Kornbluth (1920–2014) * André Lanskoy (1902–1976) * John Levee (1924–2017) * Michael Loew (1907–1985) *
Agnes Martin Agnes Bernice Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004), was an American abstract painter. Her work has been defined as an "essay in discretion on inward-ness and silence". Although she is often considered or referred to as a minimalist, Mart ...
(1912–2004) * Knox Martin (1923–2022) *
Georges Mathieu Georges Mathieu (27 January 1921 – 10 June 2012) was a French abstract painter, art theorist, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is considered one of the fathers of European lyrical abstraction, a trend of informalism. B ...
(1921–2012) * Herbert Matter (1907–1984) * Emiko Nakano (1925–1990) * George McNeil (artist), George McNeil (1908–1995) * Jean Messagier (1920–1999) * Jay Meuser (1911–1963) * George Miyasaki (1935–2013) * Seong Moy (1921–2013) * Jan Müller (artist), Jan Müller (1922–1958) * Robert Natkin (1930–2010) * Tetsuo Ochikubo (1923–1975) * Frank Okada (1931–2000) * Jerry Okimoto (1924–1998) * Jules Olitski (1922–2007) * Pat Passlof (1928–2011) * I. Rice Pereira, Irene Rice-Pereira (1902–1971) * Earle M. Pilgrim (1923–1976) * Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) * Larry Rivers (1923–2002) * Julio Rosado del Valle (1922–2008) * Jack Roth (1927–2004) * Tadashi Sato (1923–2005) * Jon Schueler (1916–1992) * Pablo Serrano (1908–1985) * Sarai Sherman (1922–2013) * Morita Shiryū (1912–1999) *
Vieira da Silva Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (13 June 1908 – 6 March 1992) was a Portuguese abstract painter. She was considered a leading member of the European abstract expressionism movement known as Art Informel. Her works feature complex interiors and c ...
(1907–1992) *
Aaron Siskind Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if ...
(1903–1991) * Tony Smith (1912–1980) * Syd Solomon (1917–2004) *
Pierre Soulages Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages (; 24 December 1919 – 26 October 2022) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are held ...
(1919–2022) *
Nicolas de Staël Nicolas de Staël (; January 5, 1914 – March 16, 1955) was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles. Early life ...
(1914–1955) * Frank Stella (born 1936) * Ary Stillman (1891–1967) * Kumi Sugai (1919–1996) * Stuart Sutcliffe (1940–1962) * Augustus Vincent Tack (1870–1949) * Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011) * Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) * Harry Tsuchidana (born 1932) * Tony Tuckson (1921–1973) * Nína Tryggvadóttir (1913–1968) * Bram van Velde (1895–1981) * Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet (1941–2010) * Cora Kelley Ward (1920–1989) * Ulfert Wilke (1907–1987) * Wols (1913–1951) * Tseng Yu-ho (1924–2017) * Zao Wou Ki (1920–2013)


See also


Related styles, trends, schools, and movements

* Abstract art * Abstract Imagists * Action painting * American Abstract Artists * Arte Povera * Asemic writing * Avant-garde * COBRA (avant-garde movement), CoBrA * Color field painting * History of painting * Informalism * Les Automatistes * Les Plasticiens *
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
* Lyricism * Minimalism * New European Painting * New York School * Organic Surrealism * 9th Street Art Exhibition * Painters Eleven * Pop art * Post-painterly abstraction *
Tachisme __NOTOC__ Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain) is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the movement in 19 ...
* Tenth Street galleries * The Irascibles * Western Painting


Other related topics

* ''Bluebeard (Vonnegut novel), Bluebeard'', by Kurt Vonnegut, is a fictional autobiography written by fictional abstract expressionist Rabo Karabekian. * Ismail Gulgee (artist whose work reflects abstract expressionist influence in South Asia during the Cold War, especially 'action painting') * Michel Tapié (critic and exhibition organizer important to the dissemination of abstract expressionism in Europe, Japan, and Latin America)


References


Books

* Belgrad, Daniel. ''The Culture of Spontaneity. Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America'' University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1998. * Anfam, David. ''Abstract Expressionism'' (New York & London: Thames & Hudson, 1990). * Craven, David
''Abstract expressionism as cultural critique: dissent during the McCarthy period''
(Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.) * Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism: Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless''
(New York School Press, 2009.) * Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,''
(New York School Press, 2003.) * Marika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''
(New York School Press, 2000.) * Papanikolas, Theresa and Stephen Salel, Stephen, ''Abstract Expressionism, Looking East from the Far West'', Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017, * Serge Guilbaut. ''How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art'', University of Chicago Press, 1983.


Bibliography

* Anfam, David. ''Abstract Expressionism—A World Elsewhere''. New York: Haunch of Venison, 2008
Haunchofvenison.com
* Clement Greenberg, Greenberg, Clement. "'American-Type' Painting". In ''Art and Culture: Critical Essays''. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961. 208–29. * Jachec, Nancy. ''The Philosophy and Politics of Abstract Expressionism 1940–1960.'' Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2000 * O'Connor, Francis V
''Jackson Pollock''
[exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) * Frances Stonor Saunders, Saunders, Frances Stonor
''The cultural cold war: the CIA and the world of arts and letters''
(New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., 2000) * Tapié, Michel
''Hans Hofmann: peintures 1962 : 23 avril-18 mai 1963.''
(Paris: Galerie Anderson-Mayer, 1963.) [exhibition catalogue and commentary] * Tapié, Michel
''Pollock''
(Paris, P. Facchetti, 1952) *


External links




Louis Schanker



Perle Fine
*
Albert Kotin
*
''James Brooks Abstract Expressionist painter 1906–1992''
*
American Abstract Artists
*
Clyfford Still Museum
* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism Abstract art Avant-garde art Congress for Cultural Freedom Contemporary art movements Modern art American art