Term applied to a movement in American painting that flourished in the 1940s and 1950s, sometimes referred to as the New York School or, very narrowly, as ACTION PAINTING, although it was first coined in relation to the work of Vasily Kandinsky in 1929. The works of the generation of artists active in New York from the 1940s and regarded as Abstract Expressionists resist definition as a cohesive style; they range from Barnett Newman’s unbroken fields of colour to Willem de Kooning’s violent handling of the figure. They were linked by a concern with varying degrees of abstraction used to convey strong emotional or expressive content. Although the term primarily denotes a small nucleus of painters, Abstract Expressionist qualities can also be seen in the sculpture of David Smith, Ibram Lassaw and others, the photography of Aaron Siskind and the painting of Mark Tobey, as well as in the work of less renowned artists such as Bradley Walker Tomlin and Lee Krasner. However, the majority of Abstract Expressionists rejected critical labels and shared, if anything, only a common sense of moral purpose and alienation from American society. Abstract Expressionism has nonetheless been interpreted as an especially ‘American’ style because of its attention to the physical immediacy of paint; it has also been seen as a continuation of the Romantic tradition of the Sublime. It undeniably became the first American visual art to attain international status and influence.

• Abstract Expressionism
  • Abstract art, §5: Abstract Expressionism and related tendencies, mid- to late 1940s and 1950s
  • Action painting
  • Biomorphism
  • Colour field painting
  • England, §III, 6: Painting and graphic arts, after c 1914
  • Greenberg, Clement
  • Guggenheim: (2) Peggy Guggenheim
  • Landscape painting, §II, 8: 20th century
  • Modernism
  • Primitivism, §4: Spiritual content
  • USA, §III, 4: Ptg & graphic arts: Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimalism & late 20th-c. dev.
  • catalogues
    • Catalogue, §4(iii): Dealers’ exhibition catalogues
  • collections
    • Jackson, Martha
    • Menil, de
    • Neumann, Morton G.
    • Scull
    • USA, §XIII: Collecting and dealing
    • USA, §XIV, 2: Museums: Period of expansion and the roles of individual collectors
  • dealers
    • Janis, Sidney
  • exhibitions
    • Miller, Dorothy C.
  • historiography
    • USA, §XVII: Historiography
  • members
    • Baziotes, William
      • Baziotes, William
    • De Kooning, Willem
      • De Kooning: (1) Willem de Kooning
    • Frankenthaler, Helen
      • Frankenthaler, Helen
    • Goodnough, Robert
      • Goodnough, Robert
    • Gottlieb, Adolph
      • Gottlieb, Adolph
    • Held, Al
      • Held, Al
    • Hofmann, Hans (Georg Albert) (1880-1966)
      • Hofmann, Hans
    • Kline, Franz (Rowe)
      • Kline, Franz
    • Marca-Relli, Conrad
      • Marca-Relli, Conrad
    • Motherwell, Robert
      • Motherwell, Robert
    • Newman, Barnett
      • Newman, Barnett
      • Newman, Barnett, §1: Early theories and work, to 1948
    • Pousette-Dart, Richard
      • Pousette-Dart, Richard
    • Rodríguez Larraín, Emilio
      • Peru, §IV, 2(iii): Painting, graphic arts and sculpture, after c 1950
    • Rothko, Mark
      • Rothko, Mark
    • Still, Clyfford
      • Still, Clyfford
    • Thieler, Fred
      • Thieler, Fred
    • Tomlin, Bradley Walker
      • Tomlin, Bradley Walker
  • paintings
    • De Kooning: (1) Willem de Kooning, §2: Mature work, c 1945 and after
    • Newman, Barnett, §3: Later work and influence, after 1955
    • Rothko, Mark, §1: Life and work
  • see also PAINTING -> types -> colour field