ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM, often known as "the New York School" or "American action painting," describes the works of a loose community of painters in New York from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. Initially influenced by surrealism and cubism, abstract expressionists rejected the social realism, regionalism, and geometric abstraction so popular with American painters of the 1930s. Instead, they turned first to mythology and then to their own experiences and insights as subject matter for their bold, at times dizzying, abstract compositions.

The term "abstract expressionism" dates from 1946, when Robert Coates of the New Yorker first used it to describe the works of several American abstractionists. Because works of abstract expressionism can diverge wildly in terms of structure and technique, art historian Irving Sandler divides abstract expressionists into two categories: gesture painters and color-field painters. Jackson Pollock remains the preeminent gesture painter; in such paintings as Cathedral (1947) and Autumn Rhythm (1950), Pollock eschewed recognizable symbols entirely, composing delicate webs of interpenetrating shapes. Color-field painters, on the other hand, suppressed all references to the past by painting unified fields of varying color. Un-like their counterparts, who often valued the act of painting as much as the finished product, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and other color-field painters strove to reproduce the metaphysical experience of the sublime.

Because each artist emphasized his or her own absolute individuality, abstract expressionists continually rejected the notion that they had coalesced into a school. Nevertheless, by 1943, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, and other future abstract expressionists were becoming increasingly familiar with each other's work. From 1943 to 1945, Peggy Guggenheim exhibited many early works of abstract expressionism in her Art of This Century Gallery. During the late 1940s, many abstract expressionists also congregated in the Subjects of the Artist School, the Cedar Tavern, and the infamous Eighth Street Club to socialize and engage in intellectual debate. Critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg emerged as abstract expressionism's most articulate champions.

Set against a backdrop of Cold War conformity, abstract expressionists often saw their work as the ultimate statement of romantic individuality and artistic freedom. By the early 1950s, however, abstract expressionism was losing much of its initial appeal. Although some abstract expressionists continued to experiment with pure abstraction, others began to reintroduce recognizable subject matter into their canvases. By mid-decade, abstract expressionism was finding a frequent home in major museums and private collections. The United States Information Agency (USIA) even organized exhibitions of abstract expressionism in response to accusations of American "philistinism."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gibson, Ann Eden. Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997.

Sandler, Irving. The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism. New York: Praeger, 1970.

John M. Kinder

See also Cubism.