Abstract Expressionism AVI4M

Action Painting The product and the act of creating are both important Also called “action painting” Stressed energy, action Began in the late 1940’s and early 50’s Partially a reaction to the war that destroyed 16 million people

They took “automatism” (creative force of the unconscious) one step further, relying on instinct to shape works of art Works of art that were not only irrational but were unpremeditated accidents Gave free reign to impulse and chance

Jackson Pollock ( ) Also known as “Jack the Dripper” by Time Magazine Abandoned the paintbrush altogether Sloshing, pouring and dripping commercial paints onto a vast roll of canvas on the floor of his studio/barn Abandoned the easel for mural-like scale

Challenged the notion of what was “Art” Paintings embodied his psychic state at the moment of creation The “drip” paintings began in 1947 Convinced a generation of artists that art should come from within rather than without

Interlacing lines Black, white, and silver paint seem to serve in complex visual rhythms No center of interest of sense of boundary he “signed” Lavender Mist in the upper left corner and at the top of the canvas with his handprints. Pollock, “No. 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)

Jackson Pollock working in his studio “"On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting."

Paint Hard, Live Hard Attacked the keys of a grand piano with an ice pick Shattered a table full of glasses, then cutting his fingers with the shards, dripped blood onto the tabletop He brawled in bars, urinated in plants, ripped doors off their hinges, and died drunk in a car crash at the age of 44

William De Kooning ( ) Came to the U.S. from Holland as a stowaway Worked in a realistic style until 1948 Developed style of slashing brushstrokes Unlike colleagues, he kept an interest in the human figure Known for a series of “Woman” paintings (which he compared to the Venus of Willendorf)

Frontal images appear to dissolve into and emerge out of fiercely brushed paint Canvas looks raw and unfinished Trademark yellow, pink, and buff colours De Kooning, “Woman I,”

Franz Kline ( ) Was converted to abstraction after viewing his normal-sized sketches blown up on a wall with a projector Giant black brushstrokes against a stark white background Began to paint black enamel bars Franz Kline, “Mahoning,” 1956

Robert Motherwell ( ) Was the wealthy intellectual of the group Studied philosophy at Harvard and Stanford Known for more than 100 paintings he called “elegies” for the doomed Spanish Republic Feature oval shapes wedged between irregular, vertical bands in black, white, and brown Motherwell, “Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 34,”

Colour Field Late 1940s and early 1950s a few New York School Painters spun off a variation of Action Paintings Colour became the focus Canvases were huge and almost mural- size

Mark Rothko ( ) Eight-foot-high paintings Consists of two or three soft-edged, stacked rectangles Interested in the relationship between one colour and another Erases all evidence of brushstrokes and recognizable subject matter As his paintings became more simple, they also became larger

Slipped into depression and alcoholism Paintings lost calm aura Became dark and melancholy Rothko, “Blue, Orange, Red,” 1961

Barnett Newman ( ) He gave up texture, brushwork, drawing, shading, and perspective for flat fields of pure colour sliced by one or two off-center strips (“zips”) Rely on power of colour Intellectual who wrestled with profound philosophical and religious issues Newman, “Adam,”

Helen Frankenthaler ( ) Combined Pollock’s method and John Marin’s watercolours With oil thinned to the consistency of watercolour and unprimed canvas tacked to the floor, she poured paint from coffee cans, guiding flow with sponges and wipers Crossroad between chance and control

Shapes float like swollen calligraphy Thin washes of pigment soak into the canvas Frankenthaler, “The Bay,” 1963

Hard Edge Took the expressionism out of Abstract Expressionism. Calculated, impersonal abstraction Uses sharply contoured, simple forms Paintings are precise and cool, as if made by machines The painted surface is nothing more than a pigment-covered area bordered by canvas stretchers.

Kenneth Noland ( ) First specialized in concentric circles “target” paintings Noland established the center of the circle (bull’s eye) By the mid 60’s, Noland moved on to another trademark shape: brightly coloured chevrons

A pioneer of the shaped canvas; he used diamonds, triangles, and irregular shapes Attempted to erase his personal identity from his canvases by the use of controlled designs, intense colours, and geometric compositions Noland, “Bend Sinister,” 1964

Frank Stella (1936) Wants you to see the whole idea without any confusion Breaking the rectangle with shaped canvases was a way to overcome the illusion that a painting is a window into illusionistic space Stella said his painting was a “flat surface with paint on it- nothing more.”

Used commercial house paint and metallic paint He based the shape of the canvas and design on a mechanical drawing tool In the 70s Stella developed a new, 3-D format straddling the border between painting and sculpture Stella, “Star of Persia II,” 1967