Abstract expressionism
In 1946, the art critic Robert Coates applied the term abstract expressionism to American art for the first time. This label emerged during a period when New York City had replaced Paris as the center of the Western art world. The movement grew from the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s. Before this shift, American social realism dominated the scene, heavily influenced by the Great Depression and Mexican muralists like David Alfaro Siqueiros. Many modernist artists fled Europe to find safety in the United States during the war years. Names such as Max Ernst, André Breton, and Peggy Guggenheim arrived in New York with help from Varian Fry. These exiles brought European avant-garde ideas that would eventually merge with local talent. Hans Hofmann taught classes that became crucial training grounds for the next generation. His students included Lee Krasner and Clement Greenberg. Arshile Gorky served as a seminal influence on figures like Willem de Kooning. Gorky's lyrical abstraction lit the way for two generations of American artists. By the early forties, galleries like The Art of This Century began showcasing these new works.
Jackson Pollock revolutionized painting by placing unstretched raw canvas directly onto the floor. He attacked the surface from all four sides using artist materials and industrial house paint. Linear skeins of paint dripped and threw themselves across the ground while he moved rhythmically around them. Harold Rosenberg coined the term action painting in 1952 to describe this process. He viewed the canvas not as a picture but as an arena in which to act. The finished work was merely a residue of the actual event taking place on the studio floor. Franz Kline produced black and white paintings that focused less on imagery than on the brushstrokes themselves. His Number 2 from 1954 demonstrated how gesture could create calligraphic symbols resembling language. Willem de Kooning created violent and grotesque figures in his Women series between 1950 and 1953. He began Woman I in June 1950 and repeatedly painted over it until abandoning it unfinished in early 1952. De Kooning then started three other paintings on the same theme during the summer of 1952 at East Hampton. These artists used automatic writing techniques to express subconscious ideas through physical movement.
Mark Rothko developed large, flat areas of color that challenged traditional definitions of expressionism. Barnett Newman created rectangles of color that appeared cool and austere compared to the gestural energy of Pollock. Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb also worked within what Clement Greenberg termed the Color field direction. These painters sought to rid their art of superfluous rhetoric and eliminate recognizable imagery entirely. They presented each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image. Helen Frankenthaler pioneered a staining technique where she poured thinned oil paint into raw canvas. Her famous work Mountains and Sea emerged from this method in 1952. Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland visited her studio in New York City in 1953 and were profoundly influenced by her approach. They returned to Washington DC to produce major works that defined the movement in the late 1950s. Ad Reinhardt's masterpiece Vir heroicus sublimis now resides in the collection of MoMA. These artists used greatly reduced references to nature while employing highly articulated psychological use of color. The integrity of the picture plane became a credo for these painters rather than the action itself.
Clement Greenberg advocated Jackson Pollock and color field painters like Mark Rothko through his writing and collecting habits. He supported Pollock on formalistic grounds as simply the best painting of its day. Harold Rosenberg preferred action painters such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Thomas B. Hess served as managing editor of ARTnews and championed Willem de Kooning specifically. Critics elevated their protégés by casting other artists as followers or ignoring those who did not serve promotional goals. John Canaday stood out as one of the most vocal critics opposing abstract expressionism at the time. Meyer Schapiro and Leo Steinberg voiced support alongside Greenberg and Rosenberg during the post-war era. Younger art historians like Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss, and Robert Hughes added considerable insights into the critical dialectic throughout the early-to-mid 1960s. Barnett Newman wrote catalogue forewords and reviews while becoming an exhibiting artist at Betty Parsons Gallery. His first solo show occurred in 1948. He remarked in Artists' Sessions at Studio 35 that they were making the world to a certain extent in their own image. A letter from Newman dated the 9th of April 1955 addressed Sidney Janis directly about rejecting bourgeois society.
Since the mid-1970s it has been argued that the style attracted attention from the CIA in the early 1950s. The agency saw abstract expressionism as representative of free thought and free markets within the United States. This perspective challenged both socialist realist styles prevalent in communist nations and European art market dominance. Frances Stonor Saunders published The Cultural Cold War detailing how the CIA financed promotion of American abstract expressionists via the Congress for Cultural Freedom from 1950 to 1967. Tom Braden served as founding chief of the CIA's International Organizations Division and former executive secretary of MoMA. He stated in an interview that this division played an enormous role in the Cold War. Michael Kimmelman later wrote Revisiting the Revisionists asserting much information concerning what happened on the American art scene during the 1940s and 50s is false or decontextualized. Christine Lindey described Soviet Union art in her book Art in the Cold War. Robert Motherwell's series Elegy to the Spanish Republic addressed some political issues while remaining part of the broader movement.
Abstract expressionism preceded Tachisme, Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Fluxus, Pop Art, Minimalism, Postminimalism, Neo-expressionism, and other movements of the sixties and seventies. It influenced all those later movements that evolved from its methods and proponents. Hard-edge painting emerged as a direct response with artists like Frank Stella and Robert Indiana leading the charge. Pop artists notably Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein achieved prominence in the US alongside Richard Hamilton in Britain. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns formed a bridge between abstract expressionism and Pop art. Donald Judd, Robert Mangold, and Agnes Martin exemplified Minimalism. Many painters such as Jules Olitski, Joan Mitchell, and Antoni Tàpies continued working in the abstract expressionist style for many years. They extended and expanded its visual and philosophical implications into styles described as lyrical abstraction and neo-expressionist today. The movement led to an American art boom that brought about styles such as Pop Art. This also helped make New York City into a cultural and artistic hub during the post-war era. By 1958 Mark Tobey became the first American painter since Whistler to win top prize at the Venice Biennale.
Up Next
Continue Browsing
Common questions
When did the art critic Robert Coates apply the term abstract expressionism to American art for the first time?
The art critic Robert Coates applied the term abstract expressionism to American art in 1946. This label emerged during a period when New York City had replaced Paris as the center of the Western art world.
Who revolutionized painting by placing unstretched raw canvas directly onto the floor in abstract expressionism?
Jackson Pollock revolutionized painting by placing unstretched raw canvas directly onto the floor. He attacked the surface from all four sides using artist materials and industrial house paint while moving rhythmically around linear skeins of dripped paint.
What year did Helen Frankenthaler create her famous work Mountains and Sea using a staining technique?
Helen Frankenthalier created her famous work Mountains and Sea in 1952. She pioneered this method by pouring thinned oil paint into raw canvas to produce large flat areas of color.
Which organization is argued to have attracted attention from the CIA regarding abstract expressionism in the early 1950s?
Abstract expressionism attracted attention from the CIA in the early 1950s according to arguments made since the mid-1970s. The agency saw the movement as representative of free thought and free markets within the United States.
When was Barnett Newman's first solo show held at Betty Parsons Gallery?
Barnett Newman held his first solo show in 1948. He wrote catalogue forewords and reviews while becoming an exhibiting artist at Betty Parsons Gallery during that time.