abstract expressionism

Movement in US painting that was the dominant force in the country's art in the late 1940s and 1950s. It was characterized by the sensuous use of paint, often on very large canvases, to convey powerful emotions. Some of the artists involved painted pure abstract pictures, but others often retained figurative traces in their work. Most of the leading abstract expressionists were based in New York during the heyday of the movement (they are sometimes referred to as the New York School), and their critical and financial success (after initial opposition) helped New York to replace Paris as the world's leading centre of contemporary art, a position it has held ever since.

In spite of its name, abstract expressionism had closer links with surrealism than with expressionism. Many European surrealists took refuge in the USA during World War II, and their spontaneous and intuitive methods of work influenced many avant-garde US artists. The two most famous abstract expressionists were Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, who were beginning to be recognized as leaders of the movement by about 1948, when Pollock first exhibited his ‘drip’ paintings and de Kooning had his first one-person exhibition. The other leading figures included Adolph Gottlieb, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. The work of these artists varied substantially. Pollock, for example, is best known for his explosive ‘action paintings’ in which the paint is applied with energetic movements, sometimes dribbled or splashed on the canvas, whereas Rothko's paintings are often serene and contemplative, using very broad areas of colour. However, all the abstract expressionists to some extent stressed the surface qualities of their pictures, glorifying the act of painting itself.

Abstract expressionism had passed its peak by about 1960, but it was enormously influential. Many post-war US artists took it as their starting point, just as European artists had taken cubism as their point of departure around the time of World War I. Abstract expressionism gave rise to other movements, such as Colour Field painting, and sculptors as well as painters were influenced by its expressively textured surfaces. Other movements or trends, such as minimal art (see minimalism), can be seen as reactions against the emotionalism of abstract expressionism. It was the first US movement to be influential in Europe, where it was to some extent paralleled by tachisme (sometimes also called Art Informel).