Tracing the relationship between Abstract Expressionist artists and contemporary intellectuals, particularly the French existentialists, Nancy Jachec here offers a new interpretation of the success of America's first internationally recognized avant-garde art form. She argues that Abstract Expressionism was promoted by the United States government because of its radical character, which was considered to appeal to a Western European populace perceived by the State Department as inclined toward Socialism.

What did it mean for painter Lee Krasner to be an artist and a woman if, in the culture of 1950s New York, to be an artist was to be Jackson Pollock and to be a woman was to be Marilyn Monroe? With this question, Griselda Pollock begins a transdisciplinary journey across the gendered aesthetics and the politics of difference in New York abstract, gestural painting. Revisiting recent exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism that either marginalised the artist-women in the movement or focused solely on the excluded women, as well as exhibitions of women in abstraction, Pollock reveals how theories of embodiment, the gesture, hysteria and subjectivity can deepen our understanding of this moment in the history of painting co-created by women and men. Providing close readings of key paintings by Lee Krasner and re-thinking her own historic examination of images of Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler at work, Pollock builds a cultural bridge between the New York artist-women and their other, Marilyn Monroe, a creative actor whose physically anguished but sexually appropriated star body is presented as pathos formula of life energy. Monroe emerges as a haunting presence within this moment of New York modernism, eroding the policed boundaries between high and popular culture and explaining what we gain by re-thinking art with the richness of feminist thought. -- .

Taking a radically new approach to the history of abstract painting, Pepe Karmel applies a scholarly yet fresh vision to reconsider the history of abstraction from a global perspective and to demonstrate that abstraction is embedded in the real world. Moving beyond the orthodox canonical terrain of abstract art, he surveys artists from across the globe, examining their work from the point of view of content rather than form. Previous writers have approached the history of abstraction as a series of movements solving a series of formal problems. In contrast, Karmel focuses on the subject matter of abstract art, showing how artists have used abstract imagery to express social, cultural and spiritual experience. An introductory discussion of the work of the early modern pioneers of abstraction opens up into a completely new approach to abstract art based around five inclusive themes - the body, the landscape, the cosmos, architecture, and the repertory of man-made signs and patterns - each of which has its own chapter. Starting from a figurative example, Karmel works outwards to develop a series of narratives that go far beyond the established figures and movements traditionally associated with abstract art. Each narrative is complemented by a number of 'featured' abstract works, which provide an in-depth illustration of the breadth of Karmel's distinctive vision. A wide-ranging examination of topics - from embryos to the surface of skin, from vortexes to waves, planets to star charts, towers to windows - is interwoven with detailed analysis of works by established figures like Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock alongside pieces by lesser-known artists such as Wu Guanzhong, Hilma af Klint and Odili Donald Odita.

What did it mean for painter Lee Krasner to be an artist and a woman if, in the culture of 1950s New York, to be an artist was to be Jackson Pollock and to be a woman was to be Marilyn Monroe? With this question, Griselda Pollock begins a transdisciplinary journey across the gendered aesthetics and the politics of difference in New York abstract, gestural painting. Revisiting recent exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism that either marginalised the artist-women in the movement or focused solely on the excluded women, as well as exhibitions of women in abstraction, Pollock reveals how theories of embodiment, the gesture, hysteria and subjectivity can deepen our understanding of this moment in the history of painting co-created by women and men. Providing close readings of key paintings by Lee Krasner and re-thinking her own historic examination of images of Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler at work, Pollock builds a cultural bridge between the New York artist-women and their other, Marilyn Monroe, a creative actor whose physically anguished but sexually appropriated star body is presented as pathos formula of life energy. Monroe emerges as a haunting presence within this moment of New York modernism, eroding the policed boundaries between high and popular culture and explaining what we gain by re-thinking art with the richness of feminist thought. -- .

Illuminating reflections on painting and drawing from one of the most revered artists of the twentieth century 'Thank God for yellow ochre, cadmium red medium, and permanent green light' How does a painter see the world? Philip Guston, one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, spoke about art with unparalleled candour and commitment. Touching on work from across his career as well as that of his fellow artists and Renaissance heroes, this selection of his writings, talks and interviews draws together some of his most incisive reflections on iconography and abstraction, metaphysics and mysticism, and, above all, the nature of painting and drawing. 'Among the most important, powerful and influential American painters of the last 100 years ... he's an art world hero' Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine 'Guston's paintings make us think hard' Aindrea Emelife, Guardian

An in-depth exploration of Malevich's pivotal painting, its context and its significance Kazimir Malevich's painting Black Square is one of the twentieth century's emblematic paintings, the visual manifestation of a new period in world artistic culture at its inception. None of Malevich's contemporary revolutionaries created a manifesto, an emblem, as capacious and in its own way unique as this work; it became both the quintessence of the Russian avant-gardist's own art-which he called Suprematism-and a milestone on the highway of world art. Writing about this single painting, Aleksandra Shatskikh sheds new light on Malevich, the Suprematist movement, and the Russian avant-garde. Malevich devoted his entire life to explicating Black Square's meanings. This process engendered a great legacy: the original abstract movement in painting and its theoretical grounding; philosophical treatises; architectural models; new art pedagogy; innovative approaches to theater, music, and poetry; and the creation of a new visual environment through the introduction of decorative applied designs. All of this together spoke to the tremendous potential for innovative shape and thought formation concentrated in Black Square. To this day, many circumstances and events of the origins of Suprematism have remained obscure and have sprouted arbitrary interpretations and fictions. Close study of archival materials and testimonies of contemporaries synchronous to the events described has allowed this author to establish the true genesis of Suprematism and its principal painting.

Employing an interdisciplinary approach, this book breaks new ground by considering how Robert Motherwell's abstract expressionist art is indebted to Alfred North Whitehead's highly original process metaphysics. Motherwell first encountered Whitehead and his work as a philosophy graduate student at Harvard University, and he continued to espouse Whitehead's processist theories as germane to his art throughout his life. This book examines how Whitehead's process philosophy-inspired by quantum theory and focusing on the ongoing ingenuity of dynamic forces of energy rather than traditional views of inert substances-set the stage for Motherwell's future art. This book will be of interest to scholars in twentieth-century modern art, philosophy of art and aesthetics, and art history.

Traditional art is based on conventions of resemblance between the work and that which it is a representation "of". Abstract art, in contrast, either adopts alternative modes of visual representation or reconfigures mimetic convention. This book explores the relation of abstract art to nature (taking nature in the broadest sense-the world of recognisable objects, creatures, organisms, processes, and states of affairs). Abstract art takes many different forms, but there are shared key structural features centered on two basic relations to nature. The first abstracts from nature, to give selected aspects of it a new and extremely unfamiliar appearance. The second affirms a natural creativity that issues in new, autonomous forms that are not constrained by mimetic conventions. (Such creativity is often attributed to the power of the unconscious.) The book covers three categories: classical modernism (Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Arp, early American abstraction); post-war abstraction (Pollock, Still, Newman, Smithson, Noguchi, Arte Povera, Michaux, postmodern developments); and the broader historical and philosophical scope.

As John Cage once recalled, there were four musicians in the early '50s who, because of their deep interest in art, associated closely with the New York School of painters: Edgard Varèse, Stefan Wolpe, Morton Feldman, and Cage himself. This book explores the interaction and influences of the visual arts on these four seminal composers. Even though each composer stressed that his aesthetic derived mainly from the visual arts, the actual transference of an aesthetic form from one medium to another took many forms, reflecting the individual sensibilities and concerns of the artists involved. The theories of performance and composition that they evolved are still controversial; taking a new and unique perspective, Johnson and his collaborators give fresh insights into the music of our time.

As John Cage once recalled, there were four musicians in the early '50s who, because of their deep interest in art, associated closely with the New York School of painters: Edgard Varèse, Stefan Wolpe, Morton Feldman, and Cage himself. This book explores the interaction and influences of the visual arts on these four seminal composers. Even though each composer stressed that his aesthetic derived mainly from the visual arts, the actual transference of an aesthetic form from one medium to another took many forms, reflecting the individual sensibilities and concerns of the artists involved. The theories of performance and composition that they evolved are still controversial; taking a new and unique perspective, Johnson and his collaborators give fresh insights into the music of our time.

This lively introduction tells the ever-evolving story of abstract art, tracing its history from the early 1900s right up to the present day. Emerging out of western movements such as Cubism and Expressionism, abstract art quickly became a global phenomenon, changing the face of modern and contemporary art. Stephanie Straine weaves accounts of well-known pioneers with fascinating insights into lesser-known ground-breakers from across the world. Although abstraction in art is often associated with vagueness or the forbiddingly theoretical, for many artists the abstract represents pure simplicity. Straine's vivid discussion demystifies the work of over seventy innovative artists - from Wassily Kandinsky to Emma Kunz and Rana Begum - and develops our appreciation of their conceptual approach. A reference section includes a timeline of key exhibitions of abstract art, suggestions for further reading and a glossary of art terms.

Traditional art is based on conventions of resemblance between the work and that which it is a representation "of". Abstract art, in contrast, either adopts alternative modes of visual representation or reconfigures mimetic convention. This book explores the relation of abstract art to nature (taking nature in the broadest sense-the world of recognisable objects, creatures, organisms, processes, and states of affairs). Abstract art takes many different forms, but there are shared key structural features centered on two basic relations to nature. The first abstracts from nature, to give selected aspects of it a new and extremely unfamiliar appearance. The second affirms a natural creativity that issues in new, autonomous forms that are not constrained by mimetic conventions. (Such creativity is often attributed to the power of the unconscious.) The book covers three categories: classical modernism (Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Arp, early American abstraction); post-war abstraction (Pollock, Still, Newman, Smithson, Noguchi, Arte Povera, Michaux, postmodern developments); and the broader historical and philosophical scope.

Contents:
Contents Preface Looking Forward, Looking Back: 1985-1999 1.The Critical Debate and Its Origins 2.History: Representation and Misrepresentation - The Case of Abstract Expressionism: Revisionism in the 1970s and early 1980s 3.Revisionism Revisited Anna Chave, T J Clark, Eva Cockroft, David Craven, Michael Fried, Anne Gibson, Clement Greenberg, Serge Guilbaut, Michael Kimmelman, Max Kozloff, Rosalind Krauss, Michael Leja, Jane de Hart Mathews, Fred Orton, Griselda Pollock, Dierdre Robson, David and Cecile Shapiro.

"Forget ordinary stationery! teNeues, the luxury German publisher, transforms notecards, journals, puzzles and even clipboards into works of art, with its latest lineup highlighting paintings by celebrated names such as Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Claude Monet." - Life & Style Magazine Our notecard set features Vasily Kandinsky's Variegation in the Triangle in dynamic greens, yellows and reds with our gold foil accent touches. Vasily Kandinsky was a master of abstraction in it's earliest stages and brought bright geometrics to play in space on the canvas - with the concept that geometry is spiritual and alive, this painting was done during his Bauhaus years. The 4x5 notecards are blank inside, perfect for all occasions & adorned with painterly foil accents.

Mark Rothko's iconic paintings are some of the most profound works of twentieth-century Abstract Expressionism. This collection presents fifty large-scale artworks from the American master's colour field period (1949-1970) alongside essays by seminal modern art critic and Rothko biographer Dore Ashton and SFMOMA curator of painting and sculpture Janet Bishop. Featuring illuminating details about Rothko's life, influences, and legacy, and brimming with the emotional power and expressive colour of his groundbreaking canvases, this essential volume brings the renowned artist's luminous work to light for both longtime Rothko fans and those discovering his work for the very first time.

This title was first published in 2003. Peter Lanyon stood at the forefront of landscape painting in Europe during the late 1950s and early 60s. A prominent St Ives artist, he was associated with Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo; his work also has affinities with abstract expressionism. Lanyon's career started just as the study of drawing was being liberated from 19th-century academic constrictions. His many drawings range from records of trips to the Netherlands and Italy to portrait sketches and abstract studies. Lanyon also used drawings extensively in the development of some of his most important paintings. In this study, Margaret Garlake explores Lanyon's theory and practice of drawing; the contribution of drawings to the evocation of place in paintings; his use of models and the metamorphosis of the human body into landscape images, as well as his use of three-dimensional constructions as equivalents to drawing.

This title was first published in 2003. Twenty-seven years after his death, Roger Hilton's reputation as a leading figure in British 'abstract expressionism' continues to rise. Following the major retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1993 and the drawings survey at the Tate St Ives in 1997, this lavishly illustrated account is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the life and work of this important artist. Hilton's extraordinary career is discussed in all its phases, from the intriguing earliest explorations in paint to the inception of his first abstract pieces around 1950 and the complex and intriguing interchanges of imagery and form that mark his final works. Adrian Lewis explains the artist's mature works as both attracting the viewer and resisting easy reading, and discusses in detail the artist's debt to the Ecole de Paris and his relation to the notion of the 'act of painting' that pervaded post-war culture.

I carry my landscapes around with me focuses on American abstract artist Joan Mitchell's large-scale multipanel works from the 1960s through the 1990s. Mitchell's exploration of the possibilities afforded by combining two to five large canvases allowed her to simultaneously create continuity and rupture, while opening up a panoramic expanse referencing landscapes or the memory of landscapes. Mitchell established a singular approach to abstraction over the course of her career. Her inventive reinterpretation of the traditional figure-ground relationship and synesthetic use of color set her apart from her peers, resulting in intuitively constructed and emotionally charged compositions that alternately evoke individuals, observations, places, and points in time. Art critic John Yau lauded her paintings as "one of the towering achievements of the postwar period." Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at David Zwirner New York in 2019, this book offers a unique opportunity to explore the range of scale and formal experimentation of this innovative area of Mitchell's extensive body of work. It not only features reproductions of each painting in this selection as a whole, but also numerous details that allow an intimate understanding of the surface texture and brushwork. In the complementing essays, Suzanne Hudson examines boundaries, borders, and edges in Mitchell's multipanel paintings, beginning with her first work of this kind, The Bridge (1956), considering them as both physical and conceptual objects; Robert Slifkin discusses the dynamics of repetition and energy in the artist's paintings, in relation to works by Monet and Willem de Kooning, among others.

This publication accompanies the Figuration Never Died: New York Painterly Painting, 1950-1970 exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. By about 1950, forward-looking New York painting was seen as synonymous with abstraction- especially charged, gestural Abstract Expressionism. But there was also a strong group of dissenters; artists, all born in the 1920s and many of them students of Hans Hofmann, who never lost their enthusiasm for the seductive qualities of thick, malleable oil paint. They remained, for the most part, 'painterly' painters. These rebellious artists include Lois Dodd, Jane Freilicher, Paul Georges, Grace Hartigan, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, Albert Kresch, Robert de Niro Sr., Paul Resika, and Anne Tabachnick. The compelling figurative work they made between about 1950 and 1970, in contrast to the prevailing Abstract Expressionism of the time, constitutes a significant chapter in the history of recent American Modernism.

Callum Innes is one of the few artists working in abstraction to include watercolour as a major part of his practice. As with many painters, his explorations in this medium form a parallel body of work, an activity taken on as a kind of 'break' from his other painting, with different circumstances, conditions and intentions. Innes has been making watercolours for more than 25 years. He began to explore the medium when he was asked to do a show at the Kunsthaus, in Zurich. He says: "I blithely said yes to an exhibition without ever having made a watercolour before. It caused a lot of stress at the time, but I gradually developed a way of working with paper and pigment. I am still making watercolours, although they have changed over the years, and now I realise that they inform the oil paintings more and more. When you place two pigments together, either opposite or complementary, and then dissolve them in water you achieve a completely new colour which only reveals itself on the paper. I am often surprised and disappointed in the same hour. "It has been a couple of years since I last spent time with watercolours. When lockdown occurred, in March 2020, I was setting up a new studio, overlooking a fjord in Oslo. It was unfamiliar, and I had no reference to earlier works as I do in Edinburgh. I started to work on a new watercolour series, focusing on them for a week at a time, always starting the day with a black and white one, just to get my hand in ... the black and white ones are the most elusive. "This new body of 50 watercolours feels stronger and more luminous than previous ones. I have kept them sequential in the book, to show how each work informs the next and so on."