1. Abstract Art – Key Works
Kasimir Malevich Black Square
[1913] Oil on canvas x cm.
Style: Russian Suprematism
1910
Wassily Kandinsky Improvisation
Style: German Expressionism

2. Composition No. 10 1939-1942 Oil on canvas 80 x 73 cm
These three artists, working in different countries, were each the centre of a group of artists who picked up on their ideas and approach to abstraction. These ideas very rapidly spread internationally and filtered down into the fields of architecture and design.
It should be noted that each was a trained artist and that all three were influenced by a “fringe” religious/philosophical movement called Theosophy.
All three artists were aiming at a kind of spiritual purity in paint.
Piet Mondrian
Composition No Oil on canvas 80 x 73 cm
Style: Dutch – De Stijl

3. Style: American Abstract Expressionism (Also termed “Action Painting)
Jackson Pollock
Lavender Mist: Number
221 x 300 cm
Style: American Abstract Expressionism
(Also termed “Action Painting)
Willem de Kooning Woman V (h) x (w) cm
Style: American Abstract Expressionism

4. Abstract Expressionism developed after WWII in New York.
It was influenced by the arrival of European artists like the Surrealists as refugees.
The three artists included here are very different in style and their work is clearly recognisable, one from the other.
Pollock is spontaneously improvising, making totally abstract paintings with an all-over composition, using splashed and dripped paint to create overlaid webs of paint.
De Kooning based his work upon an underlying Cubist drawing, working over that with gestural brushstrokes in strong, contrasting colours.
Rothko used stacked, soft-edged rectangles of subtly modulated colour to create colour fields that influenced some of the next generation of abstract painters.
Mark Rothko Orange and Yellow 1956
231 x 180 cm
Style: American Abstract Expressionism

5. Frank Stella Hyena Stomp 1962 Oil on canvas 1956 x 1956 mm painting
Frank Stella emerged as an artist at about His approach is not expressionist, but explores aspects of pattern and the interaction of colour within a geometric structure.
This has been termed “Post Painterly Abstraction” by long-winded critics. It means that the artist is using “graphic” techniques more related to design, rather than using the expressive qualities of paint.
Frank Stella Hyena Stomp  1962 Oil on canvas 1956 x 1956 mm painting

6. Australian Abstraction
Roy de Maistre
Rhythmic Composition in Yellow-Green Minor 1919
Grace Crowley Abstract painting 1950

7. Ralph BALSON Painting (Matter series),
Sydney, 1962/3 Enamel on board, 122 x 153cm

8. Roger Kemp Untitled c.1963 Acrylic on masonite 91.5 x 122cm

9. David Aspden
Abstract gouache on paper x 53.0 cm