Abstract expressionism
A huge canvas as an arena for gesture or a field of colour: no subject, all feeling
How to recognise it
- Canvases larger than a person
- Drips and pours across the whole surface
- Broad slashing strokes showing the arm's motion
- Vast single-colour fields cut by a thin stripe
Why it emerged
The war brought Europe's Surrealists and their automatism to New York, while Depression-era WPA programmes had sustained young American painters. After 1945 the Cold War and a new art market made free abstraction a symbol of American liberty.
Examples
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)1950 · Jackson PollockA five-metre canvas poured on the floor: the peak of Pollock's drip methodBlue Poles1952 · Jackson PollockAustralia's record $1.3 million purchase in 1973 sparked a national political rowWoman I1950–1952 · Willem de KooningViolent brushwork brought the human figure back into abstraction, shocking his peersVir Heroicus Sublimis1950–1951 · Barnett NewmanA five-metre red field cut by thin 'zips': colour-field painting meant to be seen up closeRothko Chapel1964–1971 · Mark RothkoFourteen dark canvases in an octagonal room: a non-denominational space for contemplation
Rothko Chapel1964–1971 · Mark RothkoFourteen dark canvases in an octagonal room: a non-denominational space for contemplationMeanwhile elsewhere
- Modern architecture (International Style) Whole world
- Mexican muralism Americas
- Surrealism Europe
- Socialist realism Eastern Europe & Russia
- Pop art Americas