Our lecture for Abstract Expressionism

1. Abstract
Expressionism
Ryan Patin, Kyle Winter, Jenna Smith
http://arcamax.com/zits/s-1130389-
355113?src=comicezine04222012

2. The Movement
• Widespread between 1940s until 1960s
• 1950 – Most important year of movement
• Located mainly in New York
• Center of Art World now moved from Paris
to New York City
• Unlike previous movement, these Artists
very rare worked together

3. Influences
• Political Instability
Primitive mask
• World War ll
• Holocaust
• Jungian Psychology
• Primitive Culture
and Myths
• Anxiety of the
Cold War
• The Great Depression

4. Art Influences
• Modern European Art
• Cubism
• Fauvism
• Dada
• Surrealism
• Abstractionism
• Regionalism
Parks, the Circus, the Klan, the Press -
Thomas Hart Benton

5. Characteristics
• Dynamic gestures
• Open Color Field
• Communicates Emotion
• Tapping into the Unconscious

6. • http://www.pureartspace.com/admin/editub
b/UploadFile/20102251434798.jpg
Blue and Yellow -

7. Characteristics (Con.)
• Usually Very Large Canvas
• Subjective
• Elements of Chance, Gravity, Paint
Viscosity
• Lack of speculation and arrangement
• Importance on Process

8. Number 5 – Jackson Pollock (1948)
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-
nN4X_z40N0U/T0D-
DZIdEkI/AAAAAAAACSk/2gJtrX4SAdU/s1
600/Pollock_no-5.jpg

9. Action Painting vs. Color-Field
Action Painting:
Color-Field Painting:
• Loose, rapid K
brushstrokes • Came slightly after Action
Painting
• Focus on the act of
• Use of flat areas of color
painting and the
(compared to the texture and
interaction with
feel of AP)
materials
• “Simple pictorial imagery
• Spontaneous dripping, designed to create emotional
“vigorous” application, impact”
and chance effects of • Large canvasses created
spilling paint onto the intimate experience
canvas

10. Action Painters Color-Field Painters
• Jackson Pollock • Mark Rothko
• William de Kooning • Barnett Newman
• Robert Kline • Clyfford Stills
Jackson Pollock, Convergence, c. 1952.

11. Purpose
• Tap into the “universal inner source”
• Remake the world into a new image that
everyone could understand through a
collective unconscious
• Envelop the audience
• Express spiritual and emotional truths
• Communicate emotions not story

12. Jackson Pollock
“I have no fears about making
changes, destroying the
image, etc., because the
painting had a life of its own”

13. Background
• Alcoholic
• Died prematurely in an alcohol related car crash
• His father was never in his life
• Thomas Hart Benton (famous social realistic
painter) was his mentor
• Married to artist Lee Krasner
• Employed by WPA during his early work

14. Characteristics
• Action Painter
• Loops and Swirls of color
• Depicted neither landscape nor figures
• Poured, spattered, and dripped his paint onto the canvas
• Used sticks, trowels, and knives
• Often mixed paint with sand, broken glass, and other
material around studio

15. Going West- 1934-35 Pre-Abstract Expressionist

16. The She-Wolf - 1943

17. Number 1a - 1948

18. Number 14 (Gray) - 1948

19. Number 1 (Lavender Mist) - 1950

20. Number 30 (Autumn Rhythm) - 1950

21. Willem De Kooning
“The attitude that nature is
chaotic and that the artist
puts order into it is a very
absurd point of view, I think.
All that we can hope for is to
put some order into
ourselves”

22. Background
• Illegal Dutch Immigrant
• Painted murals for WPA between 1935 – 1939
• Inspired by Arshile Gorky to paint a series of males
• Heavy Influenced by Picasso’s Cubism
• Married Elaine Fried, another Abstract Expressionist
• Hated the restriction that came with naming a
movement

23. Characteristics
• Cubism, Surrealism, and Expression
• Combination of Figuration and Abstraction
• Rework painting giving the appearance of incompletion
• Portrayed violent encounters
• Ambiguously blended figures
• Dismembering and then re-assembling his figure,
distorting them

24. The Artist and his Mother – Arshile Gorky Seated Woman – De Kooning
(1926)
(1940)

25. Attic - 1949

26. Excavation - 1950

27. Woman I & Woman III – (1950 – 1952) & (1952 – 1953)

28. Hans Hoffman
“Color is a plastic means of creating
intervals... color harmonics
produced by special relationships,
or tensions. We differentiate now
between formal tensions and color
tensions, just as we differentiate in
music between counterpoint and
harmony.”

29. Background
•Excelled in mathematics and science, invented radar device
for ships.
• At age sixteen, work with the Bavarian government as
assistant to the director of Public Works.
• Influenced by Impressionism, Pointillism, Pablo Picasso,
and George Braque
• Completely abstract works date from the 1940s.
•Believed that abstract art was a way to get at the
important reality.

30. Characteristics
• Pictorial structure, spatial illusion, and color
relationship.
• “Push and Pull”
•“Floating” rectangular forms
• Volume in painting through contrasting colors, shapes,
and surfaces
• Built up impastos to give thicker color

31. The Gate (1959 -1960)

32. Equinox (1958)

33. Franz Jozef Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962)
“If you’re a painter, you are not alone.
There’s no way to be alone. You think
and you care and you’re with all the
people who care. You think you care and
you’re with all the people who care,
including the young people who don’t
know they do yet.”

34. Background
• Was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
• Attended Girard College and Boston University.
• Married Elizabeth Vincent Parsons, a British ballet
dancer.
• Died in New York City of a rheumatic heart disease.
• Influenced by Japanese art styles, Willem de Kooning,
Jackson Pollock, Rembrandt, Goya, Manet, Sargent,
and Whistler.

35. Characteristics
•Majority of paintings were Black and White, Re-
introduced color into his paintings around 1955.
•Painted what he saw during a day
• Focused less on figures or imagery
• Focused on actual brush strokes and use of canvas.
• Translated animated subjects into quick, rudimentary
strokes.

36. Mahoning, 1956

37. Painting No. 7, 1952

38. Mark Rothko (1903-1970)
“Silence
is so
accurate.”

39. Background
• Born September 25, 1903 in Russia
• Immigrated to United States at age 10
• Attended Yale, but gave up studies and moved to
New York in 1923
• Taught at the Center Academy of Brooklyn Jewish
Center for 20+ years
• Max Weber Art Students League, he encouraged
Rothko to paint in a figurative style (following
Cezanne)
• Milton Avery – “Simplified and colorful depictions
of domestic subjects” influenced Rothko’s
application of paint and the treatment of colors

40. Milton Avery, Three Friends, 1944.

41. Characteristics
•Early Work - Mostly street scenes
• Stressed emotional approach
• More interested in perceptual experience;
exploring the relationship between the painting
and the viewer
• Influenced by Surrealism, focused on
“painting without conscious control”
• Loosened form
• Diluted pigments = thin “glazed” layers
• Large canvasses
• Nonobjective compositions

42. Street Scene - 1937

43. Underground Fantasy (Subway) -1940

44. Changing Towards Abstractionism
Mark Rothko, Hierarchical Birds, c. 1944. (left)
Mark Rothko, Untitled,c. 1948. (right)

45. Characteristics (con.)
• Saturating the canvas with paint = soft,
indistinct edges
• More attention to color and tone = create
different moods
• 1950 “Signature Style” emerges:
• Few floating rectangles aligned vertically
• Similar style but different colors and tones
• Oil and egg-based paints create more luminosity
• Large canvasses show direction and texture

46. Mark Rothko, no. 17,c. 1949. Mark Rothko, no. 10, c. 1950.

47. White Center (Yellow, Pink, and
Lavender on Rose) -1950.
White Center - 1957.

48. Mark Rothko, Untitled (Red)c. 1958.

49. Influences on other Movements
• Pop Art
• Op Art
• Minimalism
Gilbert Hsaio (Op Art)

50. Summary of Abstract Expressionism
• Based in New York
• Tap into the unconscious with the use of color and
gestures in order to create a emotional response to
the piece
• Untraditional methods in the creation of the piece
• Subjective
• Use of many motifs
• Importance on the process