Abstract expressionism
also: The New York School
Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York in the 1940s from a generation of Americans who had absorbed Surrealist automatism and the lessons of European modernists fleeing the war. It was the first American movement to reorient international art, shifting the centre from Paris to New York. The work runs in two broad currents: the gestural 'action' wing of Pollock, de Kooning and Krasner, for whom the canvas was an arena in which to act, and the contemplative color-field wing of Rothko, Newman and Still, painting large veils of color meant to engulf the viewer. Scale, intensity, and an insistence on the painting as an event rather than a picture united them. Its heroic self-image later drew critique, but its vocabulary - gesture, stain, scale, the canvas edge - remains the foundation of much contemporary painting.
Defining characteristics
- Monumental scale, meant to confront or envelop the viewer
- Visible gesture: drips, pours, slashes and loaded brushwork recording the act of painting
- Mostly non-representational, or representation dissolved into abstraction (de Kooning's Women)
- Emphasis on the physical surface - raw canvas, thick impasto, staining
- Emotional intensity pitched between raw aggression and meditative calm
Key figures
- Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) — Poured-paint drip paintings made gesture itself the subject
- Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) — Fused figuration and fierce, reworked abstraction
- Mark Rothko (1903-1970) — Luminous floating rectangles of color for contemplation
- Lee Krasner (1908-1984) — Key first-generation figure; gestural cycles and collages
- Barnett Newman (1905-1970) — Vast color fields punctuated by vertical 'zips'
Example works
- Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) — Jackson Pollock (1950)
- One: Number 31, 1950 — Jackson Pollock (1950)
- Woman I — Willem de Kooning (1950-52)
Sources
- Abstract expressionism - Wikipedia encyclopedia