- Date:
- 1945 - 1960
- Related Artists:
- Jackson Pollock
- Mark Rothko
- Willem de Kooning
- Norman Lewis
- Elaine de Kooning
- On the Web:
- Smarthistory - Abstract Expressionism (Nov. 03, 2026)
Abstract Expressionism
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What is Abstract Expressionism in art?
Abstract Expressionism was a significant movement in American painting that started in the late 1940s. It became a dominant trend in Western painting throughout the 1950s. Though the styles and techniques varied, Abstract Expressionist paintings often featured degrees of abstraction, emphasizing free, spontaneous, and personal emotional expression.
The Abstract Expressionists also employed the physical character of paint to evoke expressive qualities, using unstructured space and large canvases to give visual effects. Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning are considered to have begun the movement. Critic Harold Rosenberg called them action painters because the canvas was an arena in which to act.
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When and where did Abstract Expressionism begin?
Abstract Expressionism emerged as a prominent movement in American painting in the late 1940s, becoming a dominant trend throughout the 1950s. New York City is considered the center of the movement, where most of the artists lived, worked, and exhibited.
The critic Robert Coates labeled a loosely organized group of painters as "Abstract Expressionists" in 1946. Key figures included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, who sought to reconcile the psychological content of prewar French Surrealism with the pictorial innovations of European post-Cubist abstraction.
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Who are some famous Abstract Expressionist artists?
Abstract Expressionism, a significant movement in American painting, emerged in the late 1940s, dominating Western painting in the 1950s. It is characterized by abstraction, spontaneous emotional expression, and freedom of technique.
Some famous Abstract Expressionist artists include Jackson Pollock, known for his "drip" technique, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko. Others were Joan Mitchell, Clyfford Still, Philip Guston, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner, Bradley Walker Tomlin, William Baziotes, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, Elaine de Kooning, and Jack Tworkov. Most Abstract Expressionists lived, worked, or exhibited in New York City.
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How is Abstract Expressionism different from other art styles?
Abstract Expressionism, a dominant art movement in the 1950s, distinguishes itself through its emphasis on free, spontaneous, and personal emotional expression. This is achieved through considerable freedom in technique and execution, with a focus on exploiting paint's physical character to evoke qualities like sensuousness and dynamism.
Unlike conventionally structured compositions, Abstract Expressionist paintings feature a single unified field or image in unstructured space, often filling large canvases to create monumentality and engrossing power. The movement includes varied styles, such as Action painting, characterized by loose, rapid brushstrokes and chance techniques and color field painting, using large areas of flat color to achieve meditative effects.
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What are common techniques or materials used in Abstract Expressionism?
Abstract Expressionism, a dominant movement in American painting that started in the late 1940s, includes varied techniques and materials. It is characterized byAbstraction, with artists depicting forms unrealistically or non-objectively.
Action painting, a form of Abstract Expressionism, involves spontaneous application, vigorous brushstrokes, and chance effects like dripping paint. Jackson Pollock notably dripped commercial paints on raw canvas. Willem de Kooning employed expressive brushstrokes, and Franz Kline used sweeping black strokes.
Another approach involves large areas of flat color and thin paint for subtle effects, as seen in the works of Mark Rothko.
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How did Abstract Expressionism influence art and culture in the 20th century?
Abstract Expressionism, a significant American art movement starting in the 1940s, shifted the art world's focus from Paris to New York. It includes diverse styles, from Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning's dynamic "Action Painting" to Mark Rothko's meditative color fields.
Abstract Expressionism emphasized free, spontaneous emotional expression and technique, influencing both American and European art scenes. Critic Harold Rosenberg described the canvas as "an arena in which to act" rather than a space to reproduce objects. This movement paved the way for new traditions and acceptance of abstract art.
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Abstract Expressionism, broad movement in American painting that began in the late 1940s and became a dominant trend in Western painting during the 1950s. The most prominent American Abstract Expressionist painters were Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko. Others included Joan Mitchell, Clyfford Still, Philip Guston, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner, Bradley Walker Tomlin, William Baziotes, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, Elaine de Kooning, and Jack Tworkov. Most of these artists worked, lived, or exhibited in New York City.
Although it is the accepted designation, Abstract Expressionism is not an accurate description of the body of work created by these artists. Indeed, the movement comprised many different painterly styles varying in both technique and quality of expression. Despite this variety, Abstract Expressionist paintings share several broad characteristics. They often use degrees of abstraction; i.e., they depict forms unrealistically or, at the extreme end, forms not drawn from the visible world (nonobjective). They emphasize free, spontaneous, and personal emotional expression, and they exercise considerable freedom of technique and execution to attain this goal, with a particular emphasis laid on the exploitation of the variable physical character of paint to evoke expressive qualities (e.g., sensuousness, dynamism, violence, mystery, lyricism). They show similar emphasis on the unstudied and intuitive application of that paint in a form of psychic improvisation akin to the automatism of the Surrealists, with a similar intent of expressing the force of the creative unconscious in art. They display the abandonment of conventionally structured composition built up out of discrete and segregable elements and their replacement with a single unified, undifferentiated field, network, or other image that exists in unstructured space. And finally, the paintings fill large canvases to give these aforementioned visual effects both monumentality and engrossing power.
The early Abstract Expressionists had two notable forerunners: Arshile Gorky, who painted suggestive biomorphic shapes using a free, delicately linear, and liquid paint application; and Hans Hofmann, who used dynamic and strongly textured brushwork in abstract but conventionally composed works. Another important influence on nascent Abstract Expressionism was the arrival on American shores in the late 1930s and early ’40s of a host of Surrealists and other important European avant-garde artists who were fleeing Nazi-dominated Europe. Such artists greatly stimulated the native New York City painters and gave them a more intimate view of the vanguard of European painting. The Abstract Expressionist movement itself is generally regarded as having begun with the paintings done by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in the late 1940s and early ’50s.
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In spite of the diversity of the Abstract Expressionist movement, three general approaches can be distinguished. One, Action painting, is characterized by a loose, rapid, dynamic, or forceful handling of paint in sweeping or slashing brushstrokes and in techniques partially dictated by chance, such as dripping or spilling the paint directly onto the canvas. Pollock first practiced Action painting by dripping commercial paints on raw canvas to build up complex and tangled skeins of paint into exciting and suggestive linear patterns. De Kooning used extremely vigorous and expressive brushstrokes to build up richly colored and textured images. Kline used powerful, sweeping black strokes on a white canvas to create starkly monumental forms.
The middle ground within Abstract Expressionism is represented by several varied styles, ranging from the more lyrical, delicate imagery and fluid shapes in paintings by Guston and Frankenthaler to the more clearly structured, forceful, almost calligraphic pictures of Motherwell and Gottlieb.
The third and least emotionally expressive approach was that of Rothko, Newman, and Reinhardt. These painters used large areas, or fields, of flat color and thin, diaphanous paint to achieve quiet, subtle, almost meditative effects. The outstanding color-field painter was Rothko, most of whose works consist of large-scale combinations of soft-edged, solidly colored rectangular areas that tend to shimmer and resonate.
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Abstract Expressionism had a great impact on both the American and European art scenes during the 1950s. Indeed, the movement marked the shift of the creative center of modern painting from Paris to New York City in the postwar decades. In the course of the 1950s, the movement’s younger followers increasingly followed the lead of the color-field painters and, by 1960, its participants had generally drifted away from the highly charged expressiveness of the Action painters.