The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. They often drew inspiration from

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

and the contemporary

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

art movements, in particular

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 ...

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

, improvisational theater,

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

, and the interaction of friends in the New York City art world's vanguard circle.

People

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 ...

was at the center of the group before his death in 1966. Because of his numerous friendships and his post as a curator at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, he provided connections between the poets and painters such as

Jane Freilicher Jane Freilicher (November 19, 1924 – December 9, 2014) was an American representational painter of urban and country scenes from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a member of the informal New York School beginn ...

Fairfield Porter Fairfield Porter (June 10, 1907 – September 18, 1975) was an American painter and art critic. He was the fourth of five children of James Porter, an architect, and Ruth Furness Porter, a poet from a literary family. He was the brother of photo ...

, and

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg; August 17, 1923 – August 14, 2002) was an American painter, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was on ...

(who was O'Hara's lover). There were many joint works and collaborations, particularly between poets such as O'Hara,

Kenneth Koch Kenneth Koch ( ; February 27, 1925 – July 6, 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77.) He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets inc ...

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

, and

James Schuyler James Marcus Schuyler (November 9, 1923 – April 12, 1991) was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection ''The Morning of the Poem''. He was a central figure in the New York School and is of ...

: Rivers inspired a play by Koch, Koch and Ashbery together wrote the poem "A Postcard to Popeye", Ashbery and Schuyler wrote the novel ''A Nest of Ninnies'', and Schuyler collaborated on an

ode An ode (from ) is a type of lyric poetry, with its origins in Ancient Greece. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structu ...

with O'Hara, whose portrait was painted by Rivers.
Yezzi, David, "Last One Off the Barricade Turn Out the Lights", a review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' of ''The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets, '' by David Lehman, Thursday, January 3, 1999.

Ron Padgett Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School (art), New York School. ''Great Balls of Fire'', Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969 ...

Dick Gallup Dick Gallup (July 3, 1941 – January 27, 2021) was an American poet associated with the New York School. Early life and education Richard "Dick" John Gallup was born on July 3, 1941, in Greenfield, Massachusetts. In late 1949, the Gallup famil ...

Joe Brainard Joe Brainard (March 11, 1942 – May 25, 1994) was an American artist and writer associated with the New York School. His prodigious and innovative body of work included assemblages, collages, drawing, and painting, as well as designs for book ...

, and

Ted Berrigan Edmund Joseph Michael Berrigan Jr. (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet. Early life Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining ...

came to the group from

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...

. Koch, O'Hara, Schuyler, and Ashbery were quite different as poets, but they admired each other and had much in common personally: * Except for Schuyler, all overlapped at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, * Except for Ashbery, all did military service, * Except for Koch, all reviewed art, * Except for Ashbery, all lived in New York during their formative years as poets. All four were inspired by French Surrealists such as

Raymond Roussel Raymond Roussel (; 20 January 1877 – 14 July 1933) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French litera ...

Pierre Reverdy Pierre Reverdy (; 13 September 1889 – 17 June 1960) was a French poet whose works were inspired by and subsequently proceeded to influence the provocative art movements of the day, Surrealism, Dadaism and Cubism. The loneliness and spiritual app ...

, and

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

David Lehman David Lehman (born June 11, 1948) is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and literary critic, and the founder and series editor for '' The Best American Poetry''. He was a writer and freelance journalist for fifteen years, writing for such pub ...

, in his book on the New York poets, wrote: "They favored wit, humor and the advanced irony of the blague (that is, the insolent prank or jest) in ways more suggestive of

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...

and

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

than of the New York School

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painters after whom they were named."

Poetry

Concerning the New York School poets, critics argued that their work was a reaction to the Confessionalist movement in Contemporary Poetry. Their poetic subject matter was often light, violent, or observational, while their writing style was often described as cosmopolitan and world-traveled. The poets often wrote in an immediate and spontaneous manner reminiscent of

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which ...

writing, often using vivid imagery. They drew on inspiration from

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

and the contemporary

art movements, in particular the

of their friends in the New York City art world circle such as

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

and

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

. Poets often associated with the New York School include

, Barbara Guest,

Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School (art), New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born ...

Alice Notley Alice Elizabeth Notley (November 8, 1945 – May 19, 2025) was an American poet. Notley came to prominence as a member of the second generation of the New York School of poetry—although she always denied being involved with the New York Schoo ...

Anne Waldman Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political acti ...

, Tom Clark, Clark Coolidge, David Shapiro,

Lorenzo Thomas Lorenzo Thomas (October 26, 1804 – March 2, 1875) was an American officer in the United States Army who was Adjutant General of the Army at the beginning of the American Civil War. After the war, he was appointed temporary Secretary of Wa ...

Ted Greenwald Ted may refer to: Names A shortened form of the following: * Edmund * Edward * Thaddeus * Theodore (given name) Art, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Ted, a character in the post-apocalyptic short story ''I Have No Mouth, a ...

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has des ...

Kenward Elmslie Kenward Gray Elmslie (April 27, 1929 – June 29, 2022) was an American author, performer, editor and publisher associated with the New York School of poetry. Life and career Kenward Gray Elmslie was born to William Gray Elmslie and Constance ...

John Giorno John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American performance poetry, poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experim ...

Barbara Barg Barbara Barg (April 29, 1947 — May 22, 2018) was a poet, writer, and musician. Barg was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Forrest City, Arkansas. After studying with poet Ted Berrigan at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, she ...

, Jerome Sala,

Elaine Equi Elaine Equi (born 1953) is an American poet. Equi was born in Oak Park, Illinois and grew up in the Chicago area. Both her parents emigrated from Italy in the 1920s. Since 1988 she has lived in New York City with her husband, poet Jerome Sala. Sh ...

, Frank Lima,

Lewis Warsh Lewis Warsh (9 November 1944 – 15 November 2020) was an American poet, visual artist, professor, prose writer, editor, and publisher. He was a principal member of the second generation of the New York School poets,; however, he has said that � ...

, Tom Savage and Joseph Ceravolo.

Visual art

The New York School which represented the New York

abstract expressionists Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

of the 1950s was documented through a series of artists'

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

invitational

exhibitions An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

commencing with the

9th Street Art Exhibition 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).

in 1951 and followed by consecutive exhibitions at the Stable Gallery, NYC: Second Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1953; Third Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1954; Fourth Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1955; Fifth Annual Exhibitions of Painting and Sculpture, 1956 and Sixth New York Artists’ Annual Exhibition, 1957. Included in the New York School were Bradley Walker Tomlin, Robert Goodnough, Rosemarie Beck,

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

, and

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...

. Other New York School artists, including those of the 1960s, have included painters

Esteban Vicente Esteban Vicente Pérez (January 20, 1903 – January 10, 2001) was a Spanish American painter born in Turégano, Spain. He was one of the first generation of New York School abstract expressionists. He identified as an antifascist. Early life E ...

Richard Pousette-Dart Richard Warren Pousette-Dart (June 8, 1916 – October 25, 1992) was an American abstract expressionist artist most recognized as a founder of the New York School of painting.Kimmelman, Michae"Richard Pousette-Dart, 76, Dies; An Early Abstract E ...

, Cecile Gray Bazelon,

William Baziotes William Baziotes (June 11, 1912 – June 6, 1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism. Life and career Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents Angelos and Stella, Baziotes w ...

Nell Blaine Nell Blair Walden Blaine (July 10, 1922–November 14, 1996) was an American landscape painter, expressionist, and Watercolor painting, watercolorist. From Richmond, Virginia, she had most of her career based in New York City and Gloucester, Mass ...

, Seymour Boardman,

Ilya Bolotowsky Ilya Bolotowsky (July 1, 1907 – November 22, 1981) was an early 20th-century Russian-American painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric ...

, Ernest Briggs, Peter Busa, Lawrence Calcagno,

Nicolas Carone Nicolas Carone (June 4, 1917 – July 15, 2010) belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. Their artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized internationally, including in London and Paris. New ...

, Nanno de Groot,

Beauford Delaney Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) was an American modernist painter. He is remembered for his work with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his later works in abstract expressionism following his move ...

Lynne Mapp Drexler Lynne Mapp Drexler (May 21, 1928– December 30, 1999) was an American abstract and representational artist, painter and photographer. Early life and education Lynne Drexler was born on May 21, 1928 and raised in the Newport News, Virginia, area ...

, Edward Dugmore, Amaranth Ehrenhalt,

John Ferren John Millard Ferren (October 17, 1905 – July 1, 1970) was an American artist and educator. He was active from 1920 until 1970 in San Francisco, Paris and New York City. Early life John Ferren was born in Pendleton, Oregon on October 17, 1 ...

, Perle Fine,

Joseph Glasco Joseph Glasco (January 19, 1925 – May 31, 1996) was an American abstract expressionist painter, draftsman and sculptor. He is most known for his early figurative drawings and paintings and in later years for deconstructing the figure to develop ...

, Karl Hagedorn,

John Hultberg John Hultberg (February 8, 1922 – April 15, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist and Abstract realist painter. Early in his career he was related to the Bay Area Figurative Movement; he was also a lecturer and playwright. Early life a ...

, Albert Kotin,

Clarence Major Clarence Major (born December 31, 1936) is an American poet, painter, and novelist; and winner of the 2015 "Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts", presented by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. He was awarded the 2016 PEN Oakla ...

Knox Martin Knox Martin (February 12, 1923 – May 15, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist. Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, he studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1946 until 1950. He was one of the leading members of the N ...

Hugh Mesibov Hugh Mesibov (December 29, 1916 – March 25, 2016 ) was an American abstract expressionist artist who began his career as a federal artist for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression and later became a member of the 10th St ...

, Ray Parker,

Misha Reznikoff Misha Reznikoff (1905–1971) was an American-Ukrainian artist noted for such pictures as ''The End of the Horse – Or New Deal'' (1934) and ''The Solidity of the Road to Metaphor and Memory'' (1935). He was born in Kyiv, Russian Empire, in 1905 ...

, Joop Sanders,

Louis Schanker Louis Schanker (1903 – May 7, 1981) was an American abstract artist. Early life He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents, Sam, a tailor, and Fannie Schanker, were of Romanian descent. He had five sibl ...

, William Scharf,

Ethel Schwabacher Ethel Kremer Schwabacher (born May 20, 1903, New York, New York, U.S.— died November 25, 1984, New York, New York, U.S.) was an influential abstract expressionist painter, represented by the Betty Parsons Gallery in the 1950s and 1960s. She ...

, Kendall Shaw,

Gloria Shapiro Gloria may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music * Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise * Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise ** Gloria (Handel) ** Gloria (Jenkins ...

, Thomas Sills,

Merton Simpson Merton Daniel Simpson (September 20, 1928 – March 9, 2013) was an American abstract expressionist painter and African and tribal art collector and dealer. Early life Merton D. Simpson was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Between the ages ...

Hedda Sterne Hedda Sterne (August 4, 1910 – April 8, 2011) was a Romanian-born American artist who was an active member of the New York School (art), New York School of painters. Her work is often associated with Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism.Stern ...

, and Jack Stewart. In addition, painter/sculptors

Karel Appel Christiaan Karel Appel (; 25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-gard ...

Claire Falkenstein Claire Falkenstein (; July 22, 1908 – October 23, 1997) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer, and teacher, most renowned for her often large-scale abstract metal and glass public sculptures. Falkenstein was one of Am ...

Betty Parsons Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...

, and

Antoni Tàpies Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tápies, Marquess of Tàpies (; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was a Catalans, Catalan painter, sculptor, and art theorist. Life The son of Josep Tàpies i Mestre and Maria Puig i Guerra, Antoni T ...

are known as members of the New York School.Holland Cotter (July 13, 2005)
"'Betty Parsons and the Women'; An Artist and Dealer and the Women She Promoted"
''The New York Times''.

Galleries

The

Anita Shapolsky Gallery The Anita Shapolsky Gallery is an art gallery that was founded in 1982 by Anita Shapolsky. It is currently located at 152 East 65th Street, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, in New York City. The gallery specializes in 1950s and 1960s abstract ...

in New York City specializes in 1950s and 1960s New York School art, and exhibits

expressionism 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 rad ...

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

, and

painterly Painterliness is a concept based on ' ('painterly'), a word popularized by Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) to help focus, enrich and standardize the terms being used by art historians of his time to characterize Work of ...

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

. It most frequently exhibits works in

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

and acrylic, as well as sculpture. The

Tibor de Nagy Gallery The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is an art gallery located on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. History Tibor de Nagy Gallery is among the earliest modern art galleries in New York City. The gallery was founded by Tibor de Nagy (1 ...

and

Stable Gallery The Stable Gallery, originally located on West 58th Street in New York City, was founded in 1953 by Eleanor Ward. The Stable Gallery hosted early solo New York exhibitions for artists including Marisol Escobar, Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. His ...

have also exhibited New York School art, and in 1998, the

Gagosian Gallery The Gagosian Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2024, Gagosian employs 300 people at 19 exhibiti ...

also in New York City presented an exhibit of New York School art.

Music

The term also refers to a circle of composers in the 1950s which included

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, a development associated with the experimental New York School o ...

Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since, ...

and Christian Wolff. David Nicholls, "Getting Rid of the Glue. The Music of the New York School", in: ''The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts'', Steven Johnson (Ed.), Routledge 2002, p. 18. Their music influenced the music and events of the

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

group, and drew its name from the

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painters above.

Dance

During the 1960s the

Judson Dance Theater Judson Dance Theater was a collective of dancers, composers, and visual artists who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. The artists involved were avant garde experimentalists ...

located at the

Judson Memorial Church The Judson Memorial Church is located on Washington Square South between Thompson Street and Sullivan Street, near Gould Plaza, opposite Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhatt ...

, New York City, revolutionized

Modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert dance, concert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th ...

. Combining in new ways the idea of

Performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, radical and new Choreography, sound from

composers, and dancers in collaboration with several New York School Visual artists. The group of artists that formed Judson Dance Theater are considered the founders of

Postmodern dance Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance movement that came into popularity in the early 1960s. While the term ''postmodern'' took on a different meaning when used to describe dance, the dance form did take inspiration from the ideologie ...

. The theater grew out of a dance composition class taught by Robert Dunn, a musician who had studied with

. The artists involved with Judson Dance Theater were avant-garde experimenatalists who rejected the confines of ballet technique, vocabulary and theory. The first Judson concert took place on July 6, 1962, with dance works presented by Steve Paxton,

Freddie Herko Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher. Early life Born in New York City, Herko's father was a diner manager and his mother was a ...

, David Gordon, Alex and Deborah Hay, Yvonne Rainer, Elaine Summers, William Davis, and Ruth Emerson. Seminal dance artists that were a part of the Judson Dance Theater include: David Gordon,

Steve Paxton Steven Douglas Paxton (January 21, 1939 – February 20, 2024) was an American experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with Jos� ...

Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her danc ...

, Lucinda Childs, Deborah Hay,

Elaine Summers Lillian Elaine Summers (February 20, 1925 – December 27, 2014) was an American choreographer, experimental filmmaker, and intermedia pioneer. She was a founding member of the original workshop-group that would form the Judson Dance Theater and ...

, Sally Gross, Aileen Passloff, and

Meredith Monk Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recordi ...

. The years 1962 to 1964 are considered the golden age of the Judson Dance Theater. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s New York School artists collaborated with several other choreographer / dancers including: Simone Forti, Anna Halprin,

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer, teacher and choreographer, whose style, the Graham technique, reshaped the dance world and is still taught in academies worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over s ...

, and Paul Taylor.

References

Bibliography

* Philip Pavia; Natalie Edgar
''Club without walls: selection from the Journals of Philip Pavia''
New York: Midmarch Arts, 2007. * Irving Sandler
‘’The New York School: the painters & sculptors of the fifties,’’
New York; London: Harper and Row, 1978. , * Irving Sandler
‘’ The triumph of American painting: a history of abstract expressionism’’
New York; London: Harper and Row, 1977. , * 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.) * ''Statutes of Liberty, The New York School of Poets'', Geoff Ward, Second Edition, 2001. * '' The New American Poetry, 1945–1960'', Donald Merriam Allen, 1969. * ''An Anthology of New York Poets'',

(ed.) and David Shapiro (ed.), 1970. *

Marjorie Perloff Marjorie Perloff (born Gabriele Mintz; September 28, 1931 – March 24, 2024) was an Austrian-born American poetry scholar and critic, known for her study of avant-garde poetry. Perloff was a professor at Catholic University, the University of ...

, ''Frank O'Hara: Poet Among Painters'',

University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is the university press of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly and trade books in several areas, including Latin American studies, Caribbean, Caribbea ...

, 1977. * ''The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets'',

, 1998. * Maurice Tuchman (ed.), ''The New York School,'' Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965. * Dore Ashton, ''The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning'', Penguin Books, 1979. * Serge Guilbaut, ''How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art : Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War,'' Chicago :

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

, 1983.

External links

Tate Museum page

New York School, Art, in Britannica

The New York School, Robert Motherwell and the Abstract Expressionism
a shorten taken from Storming the Citadel, 1991. Video released by art critic and curator dr

Alain Chivilò Alain Chivilò or Chivilo in art and culture is an Italian contemporary curator, critic, journalist and writer based in Italy with collaborations outside his home country. University education in two different fields, economics and art history, bec ...

{{Authority control Abstract expressionism American contemporary art Modern art Modernism American literary movements Cultural history of New York City Modernist poetry in English American art movements 20th-century American literature