Franz Kline Franz Jozef Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter mainly associated with the abstract expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys. He attended Boston University, and later taught at a number of institutions including Black Mountain College in North Carolina and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.[1] He spent summers from 1956 to 1962 painting in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and died in New York City of a rheumatic heart disease. He was married to Elizabeth Vincent Parsons, a British ballet dancer. Career[edit] As with Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, he was labeled an "action painter" because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas. Black and white and color[edit] Exhibitions[edit] Influence[edit]
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to as Abstract expressionism or Action painting, and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York School. Other painters in this group included Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Anne Ryan, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, and Clyfford Still. In September 2011 de Kooning's work was honored with a large-scale retrospective exhibition: de Kooning: A Retrospective September 18, 2011 – January 9, 2012 at MoMA in New York City. Organized by John Elderfield it was the first major museum exhibition devoted to the full breadth and depth of de Kooning's career, containing nearly 200 works. Biography[edit] Mature works[edit] Exhibitions[edit] Recognition[edit]
Abstract expressionism Style[edit] Technically, an important predecessor is surrealism, with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of André Masson, Max Ernst and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all-over" look of Pollock's drip paintings. Mark Tobey, Canticle, 1954. Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early 20th century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. Although the abstract expressionist school spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and the San Francisco Bay area of California.
Frank Stella Frank Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella continues to live and work in New York. Biography[edit] Stella was born in Malden, Massachusetts, to parents of Italian descent.[1] After attending high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he attended Princeton University, where he majored in history and met Darby Bannard and Michael Fried. Work[edit] Late 1950s and early 1960s[edit] Upon moving to New York City, he reacted against the expressive use of paint by most painters of the abstract expressionist movement, instead finding himself drawn towards the "flatter" surfaces of Barnett Newman's work and the "target" paintings of Jasper Johns. From 1960 Stella began to produce paintings in aluminum and copper paint which, in their presentation of regular lines of color separated by pinstripes, are similar to his black paintings. Late 1960s and early 1970s[edit]
Franz West Flause (1998); Aluminium Franz West (16 February 1947 – 25 July 2012) was an Austrian artist. Early life and education[edit] West was born on 16 February 1947. Work[edit] West began making drawings around 1970 before moving on to painted collages incorporating magazine images that showed the influence of Pop Art.[2] His art practice started as a reaction to the Viennese Actionism movement has been exhibited in museums and galleries for more than three decades.[4] Over the last 20 years he had a regular presence in big expositions like Documenta and the Venice Biennale.[5] West's artwork is typically made out of plaster, papier-mâché, wire, polyester, aluminium and other, ordinary materials. In the late 1990s, West turned to large-scale lacquered aluminum pieces, the first (and several after) inspired by the forms of Viennese sausages, as well as the shapes of the Adaptives. The Fitting Pieces[edit] Exhibitions[edit] Awards[edit] Personal life[edit] Art market[edit] Literature[edit]
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American painter, printmaker, and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School (a phrase he coined), which also included Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Early life and education[edit] Robert Motherwell was born in Aberdeen, Washington on January 24, 1915, the first child of Robert Burns Motherwell II and Margaret Hogan Motherwell. At the age of 20 Motherwell traveled to Europe with his father and sister. At Harvard, Motherwell studied under Arthur Oncken Lovejoy and David Wite Prall; to research the writings of Eugène Delacroix he spent a year in Paris, where he met an American composer Arthur Berger. The New York School and the Surrealists[edit] In 1940, Motherwell moved to New York to study at Columbia University, where he was encouraged by Meyer Schapiro to devote himself to painting rather than scholarship. Mature years[edit] In 1970, Motherwell moved to Greenwich, Connecticut.
Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism. Biography[edit] Clyfford Still was a leader in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately following World War II. Still's contemporaries included Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Though the styles and approaches of these artists varied considerably, Abstract Expressionism is marked by abstract forms, expressive brushwork, and monumental scale, all of which were used to convey universal themes about creation, life, struggle, and death ("the human condition"), themes that took on a considerable relevance during and after World War II. Described by many as the most anti-traditional of the Abstract Expressionists,[citation needed] Still is credited with laying the groundwork for the movement.
Color Field Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists. Color Field is characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action in favour of an overall consistency of form and process. In color field painting "color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject in itself. During the late 1950s and 1960s, Color field painters emerged in Great Britain, Canada, Washington, DC and the West Coast of the United States using formats of stripes, targets, simple geometric patterns and references to landscape imagery and to nature.[2] Historical roots[edit]