Abstract Expressionism

What is Abstract Expressionism ?

Prominent between 1940’s to the mid 1950’s

Post world war II American art movement

New York at center

Rebellious, anarchic, and Idiosyncratic

Origin

Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) Surrealist The Father of Abstract Expressionism A bridge

Gorky’s Famous Works

PORTRAIT OF MASTER BILL (1929-1936)

THE LIVER IS THE COCK’S COMB (1944)

Foundations

Kandinsky's Abstraction

The Dadaist’s reliance on chance

Surrealist’s endorsement of Freudian theory

Characteristics

Usually on large canvas

Emotional Intensity

The Act of painting

Careful planning

Energetic application of paint

Styles

Action Painting Jackson Pollock Willem De

Kooning Franz Kline

Color Field Mark Rothko Clyfford Still Barnett Newman Kenneth Noland

Color Field

Brush strokes and large planes of color.

Create tension between the shapes and hues

More emphasis on overall consistency of form and process

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)

color, shape, balance, depth, composition, and scale

Inspired by mythology and philosophy

Basic human emotions Color = “merely an instrument” Nebulous rectangles

Blue, Orange, and Red (1961)

No. 61 (Rust and Blue) - 1953

Clyford Still (1904-1980)

Shift from representational to abstraction

One layer of painting seems “torn” off.

Thick impasto, unlike Rothko.

No.1 (1957)

No.2 (1957)

Barnett Newman(1905-1970)

Used lines on vast fields of color

Rejected the expressive brushwork

Unappreciated, and overlooked.

Signature mark was the “Zip”

Named his works with Jewish themes.

Onement 1 (1948)

Vir Heroicus Sublimis (1950-51)

Kenneth Noland (1924-2010)

4 groups: Circles/Targets Chevrons Stripes Shaped Canvases

Emphasized spatial relationships

Beginning (1958)

Bridge (1964)

Action Painting

Paint is dripped, slashed, smeared or even splashed.

Emphasize the physical act of painting.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)

Born in Cody, Wyoming

Jack the Ripper Drip-and-splatter

Helped begin this movement

Jackson Pollock: Techniques

Created the drip method

Used sticks, harden brushes and basting syringes

With unbounded canvases on the floor or wall

Untitled (Green Silver)- 1949

Ocean Greyness (1953)

Number 8 (1949)

Willem De Kooning (1904-1997)

Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

garish colors

Background figures overlap other figures

Woman series

The New York School

Woman V (1952-1953)

Valentine (1947)

Franz Kline (1910-1962)

Didn’t care about figure and imagery

Instead, focused on actual brush strokes

Black and white

“The final test of a painting, theirs, mine, any other, is: does the painter's emotion come across?"

Painting #2 (1954)

Suspended (1953)