Abstract Expressionism

Jackson Pollock painting in his studio, Springs, New York, 1949.

Abstract Expressionism was an art movement which lasted from the late 1940s until the early 1950s. The artists used free, often random, application of paint to create images with no tie to reality. Abstract Expressionism is to art as Jazz is to Mozart. It went far outside the accepted traditions for art. The best known abstract expressionists were Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning.

It was Robert Coates who coined the term Abstract Expressionism.

Billboard by Grace Hartigan, 1957.

Joan Mitchell, Chord VII, 1987.

• Lyrical Abstraction
• Painting Schools
• Mark Rothko
• Sam Francis

Woman VI by Willem de Kooning.

• An Inside Look at the AbEx-ers.