New York Figurative Expressionism
New York Figurative Expressionism names the painters who kept the human figure at the center of their work while Abstract Expressionism dominated postwar Manhattan. Though the impulse reaches back to the 1930s in the work of Marsden Hartley and Max Weber, the label was coined later as a counter-distinction to abstraction's rise. In the 1950s artists like Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Fairfield Porter and Jan Müller painted figures with the scale, aggression and loose handling of their abstract peers, drawing on Old Masters, German Expressionism and everyday portraiture. Critics treated figuration as conservative and champions were few: the journal Reality (1953) defended any painter's right to paint any way he wants. Frank O'Hara championed the group in verse and prose, and by the late 1960s the figure had returned from exile in American art.
Defining characteristics
- The human figure treated as the central subject at Abstract Expressionism's heroic scale
- Loose, painterly brushwork and visible gesture carried over from gestural abstraction
- Expressionist distortion and bold color rather than academic realism
- Old Master and history-painting references - classical poses, equestrian and mythological subjects
- Portraiture and everyday scenes handled with direct, sometimes blunt realism
Key figures
- Larry Rivers (1923-2002) — Merged history painting and pop irreverence (Washington Crossing the Delaware)
- Grace Hartigan (1922-2008) — Painterly figuration bridging Abstract Expressionism and pop art
- Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) — Portraitist who carried gestural abstraction into likeness and figure
- Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) — Painted family and domestic scenes with direct, unforced realism
- Jan Müller (1922-1958) — Allegorical, mythic figure painting with German Expressionist color
Example works
- Washington Crossing the Delaware — Larry Rivers (1953)
- Homage to Matisse — Grace Hartigan (1955)
- The Search for the Unicorn — Jan Müller (1957)
Sources
- New York Figurative Expressionism - Wikipedia encyclopedia