By Jai Govind, Jason Brown, Michael Ung

1. Abstract ExpressionismAbstract Expressionism
By Jason Brown, Jai Govind, Michael Ung

2. Brief History
First appeared in New York City after World WarAn art
movement in mid 20th
century
The roots of abstract expressionism goes back to Russian-
born painter Wassily Kandinsky
European painters inspired the use of Abstract Expressionism

3. The New York School
Informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and
musicians active in the 1950s – 1960s in NYC.
The artists often used Surrealism as an inspiration

4. Influences
Figurative paintings of the 1930s
Great Depression Era
Social Realism
Regionalist
The Museum of Modern Art

5. Criticism
Rejected the movement for its artistic value
John Canaday “Happy New Year”
Artists had a hard time appealing to critics during the first
few years
The artists were torn between independent objectives and
pressures of war and society
Critics loved the main artists but hated those who tried to
follow them

6. Action Painting
• Created by Jackson Pollock
• Definition: spontaneously splattering, smearing, or dripping
paint onto a canvas
• Improvised with emphasis on the act of painting
• The final work was only an artistic object, not the art
• Term coined by the critic Harold Rosenberg
• Other notable action painters: Lee Krasner, Willem de
Kooning, and Franz Kline

7. Jackson Pollock
Born January 28, 1912, in Cody Wyoming
Father abandoned his family when he was eight
1930, followed his oldest brother to NY
Used unconventional objects and methods to paint
Started naming his works only with numbers
Influenced by Picasso, Miró, Siquieros, and the Surrealists

8. Pollock’s Wife
Lee Krasner, born October 27, 1908
Started early to be an artists. 1926, enrolled at Cooper Union
for the Advancement of Art and Science; 1928, transferred to
the National Academy of Design where she painted her first
important work Self­Portrait in 1930
Pollock helped her mature as an artist, and she helped him a
little as well
1953-1955 she made a significant technical move into the
medium of collage

9. Criticisms
Many believe his art did not take talent
Bruno Alfieri was one of the most outspoken critics
Claimed, “It is easy to detect the following things in all of his
paintings: chaos; absolute lack of harmony; complete lack of
structural organization; total absence of technique, however
rudimentary; once again, chaos.”

10. No. 5, Convergence

11. (left) Going West (1934-35)

12. Imperative – Krasner collage

13. Franz Kline (1910-1962)
Born in Wilkes, PA
Complicated childhood: Father committed suicide. Mother
remarried.
His mother sent him to an institution afterwards for
fatherless boys (orphanage).
Left on his own, Kline worked as a cartoonist for his high
school newspaper.
Attended Boston University. Later Heatherly’s School for Art
in London.

14. Influence
After returning to New York from London, he worked odd
jobs.
Much of his is early art works were shaped around the Old
Masters.
1943- He met Willem de Kooning and began to frequent the
Cedar Bar.
Under the Abstract Expressionists, he abandoned figuration
and adopted the gestural abstract technique.
He experimented and explored black and white palette of
ink on paper sketches.

15. Painting “Chief” 1950

16. Style
He used the black and white palette technique on canvases
using house-paint and brushes.
He always used house-paint because it has low viscosity.
His abstract paintings were usually of furniture like chairs,
tables, and ordinary household items. Phonebooks.

17. Projector
Kline’s paper sketches expanded his palette technique
because he later enlarged those with the projector.

18. Painting Number 2 (1954)

19. Color Field Painting
Less focused on the process of making the art
Tension created by overlapping and interacting areas of flat
colors
Area of colors can be amorphous or clearly geometric
Often painted on huge canvases
Began around 1950

20. Color Field Painting
• Key Characteristics:
• Bright, local colors
• Emphasize the flatness of the canvas or paper
• Tension between the colors and shapes
• Interactions of shapes through overlapping or interpenetrations blurs
spacial distinctions
• Encourages the viewer to experience the color as an enormous,

21. “Beginning” Kenneth Noland

22. “Blue and Grey” Mark Rothko

24. Willem de Kooning
Born April 24, 1904 and died March 19, 1997
Dutch-born American painter who was one of the key artist in AbEx
Painted both styles
Went to Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Techniques for eight years
He moved to America as a stowaway in 1926
Influenced by Arshile Gorky in 1938
In 1940s he started his Women series and other biomorphic forms

25. Willem de Kooning
• In 1946, de Kooning became too poor to afford supplies so he turned to black
and white household enamels
• De Kooning’s style was an emphasis on complex figures
• Late 1950s – early 1960s : de Kooning entered a new phase of pure abstraction
and landscape
• Later on in his life, de Kooning was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease

26. Willem de Kooning
• Main techniques:
• Main style was “Action Painting”
• Spontaneous brushwork
• Abstract shapes to represent real world items
• Human figures and landscapes
• Would sometimes start on his art and then finish it at a later
time

27. Paintings
“Woman I”

30. Women Series
Began to paint his Women series in 1950
Used experiences from his life as influences
Represented the conflicting feelings of his mother and
woman
Released his inner feelings that were locked inside of him

31. “Excavation”

32. Mark Rothko
Born in 1903 in Dvinsk, Russia
As a child, we remembered the local beating of Jews in his
hometown.
His paintings were described by many people to be like
going to the cinema.
Rothko wanted to evoke emotional response from his
viewers.

33. Style/Frames
Rothko’s paintings are thinly washed layers of colors that
interact and swim into another.
His paintings are not framed because he believed that
framed paintings were considered to be imaginary.
He layered color over color over color in his paintings which
shows the complexity in his paintings.
He wanted the viewers to stand in the painting to admire it,
and so he had them hung low on the walls.

34. Slow Swirl at the Edge of
the Sea (1944)

35. Untitled (1944-46)

36. Archaic Idol (1945)

37. No. 1 (1948)

38. No.5/No.22 (1949)

39. No. 16 (1958)

41. Untitled (1970)

42. Barnett Newmann
Born 1905 in New York City, New York
Worked on Expressionist art in 1930s
Pushed Color Field Painting to its limits
Very huge paintings and “Zips”

43. Vir Heroicus Sublimis
(1950-51)

44. Summary and Ending
There is no real ending date; however, the movement went
from the 1940s through the 50s
Followed by Pop Art
Came out of the Great Depression and a need to express the
subconscious (Surrealism did not have the “real” element
needed)
Brought art focus from Europe to America
Allowed artists to be innovative, led by the abstract
expressionism artists, but still their own style