The Beat Generation and

American Abstract Expressionism

After the atrocities of World War II, many artists felt that the world needed to be reinvented

Select four of the paintings and write a personal essay in your own words. Use the rubric as a tool to assess your progress. Write a comparison and contrast of at least four of the reproductions of paintings that I have provided for your analysis and further research. You may want to try to structure the comparison and contrast essay in a similar fashion as a “Document Based Question” Essay is structured on the Global Regents Exam and consider questions such as the following:

•  What do you see in each image?; What is compelling about each one?

•  What do you think that the artists were trying to show to the viewer?

• What intellectual thoughts do you have when you look at the images that you selected? For example, does the artist seem to be describing a specific kind of spatial reality? Please explain your observations.

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.

Abstract Expressionism is marked by abstract forms, expressive brushwork, and monumental scale, allof 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, Still is credited with laying the groundwork for the movement. Still's shift from representational painting to abstraction occurred between 1938 and 1942, earlier than his colleagues, who continued to paint in figurative-surrealist styles well into the 1940s. (http://clyffordstillmuseum.org)

Still was born in Grandin, North Dakota and spent his childhood in Spokane, Washington and Bow Island in southern Alberta, Canada. Although Abstract Expressionism is identified as a New York movement, Still’s formative works were created during various teaching posts on the West Coast, first in Washington State and later in San Francisco. He also taught in Virginia in the early 1940s.

Still visited New York for extended stays in the late 1940s and became associated with the two galleries that launched this new American art to the world—the Art of This Century and Betty Parsons galleries.

He lived in New York for most of the 1950s, the height of Abstract Expressionism, but also

a time when he became increasingly critical of the art world. In the early 1950s, Still severed ties with commercial galleries and in 1961 moved to Maryland, removing himself further from the art world. He remained in Maryland with his second wife, Patricia, until his death in 1980.

In 1979, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art organized the largest survey of Still’s art to date and the largest presentation afforded by this institution to the work of a living artist. Following his death, all works that had not entered the public domain were sealed off from both public and scholarly view, closing off access to one of the most significant American painters of the 20th century. clyffordstillmuseum.org)

1944 N No.2, by Clifford Still, 1944; Oil on canvas, 8' 8 ¼” x 7’

Number 5, Jackson Pollock, 1948; The painting was done on an 8' x 4' sheet of fiberboard, with thick amounts of brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of it, forming a nest-like appearance. It was originally owned by Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. and displayed at the Museum of Modern Art before being sold to David Geffen and then allegedly to David Martinez in 2006 (though the supposed sale of this painting to Martinez has been denied by his attorneys). According to a report in The New York Times on November 2, 2006, the painting was sold by David Geffen, founder of Geffen Records and co-founder of Dreamworks SKG, to David Martinez, managing partner of Fintech Advisory Ltd, in a private sale for a record inflation-adjusted price of $140 million. (http://www.jackson-pollock.org)

One: Number 31, Oil and enamel on unprimed canvas, 8' 10" x 17' 5 5/8”, 1950 is a masterpiece of the 'drip' technique and among the largest of Pollock's paintings. Begun approximately three years after his first painting in this style, the work is evidence of the artist's skill and technical prowess. Calligraphic, looping cords of color animate and energize every inch of the composition, which seems to expand visually, despite its already enormous size. As he did for all his drip paintings, Pollock painted One: Number 31, 1950 with the canvas lying on the floor.

On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.” (http://www.jackson-pollock.org)

Convergence, by Jackson Pollock, 1952, oil on canvas; 93.5 in. by 155 in. ; Pollock's style of painting is an important, innovative development in the history of painting. At the time of the painting, the United States took very seriously the threat of Communism and the cold war with Russia. Convergence was the embodiment of free speech and freedom of expression. Pollock threw mud in the face of convention and rebelled against the constraints of societies oppressions. It was everything that America stood for all rapped up in a messy, but deep package. On that same note, some of Pollock's works were even sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950), which was backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (Karmel, 1999). The CIA appreciated Pollock's style, because it steered clear of social realism and overt political gestures. Pollock's abstract work was hard to decipher, but his rebellious nature and expressions of freedom were clearly evident. (http://www.jackson-pollock.org/convergence.jsp#prettyPhoto)

Number 11 or Blue Poles, 1952, by Jackson Pollock, 6' 11" x 15' 11" (2.10 m x 4.9 m); Using house paint, he dripped, poured, and flung pigment from loaded brushes and sticks while walking around it. He said that this was his way of being "in" his work, acting as a medium in the creative process. For Pollock, who admired the sand painting of the American Indians, summoning webs of color to his canvases and making them balanced, complete, and lyrical, was almost an act of ritual.

“Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.”-Jackson Pollock

(http://www.jackson-pollock.org)

Number One, 1950(Lavender Mist); Like an ancient cave painter, he signed the painting in the upper left corner and at the top of the canvas with his handprints. Though the work contains no lavender, the webs of black, white, russet, orange, silver, and stone blue industrial paints in Lavender Mist radiate a mauve glow that inspired Greenberg, Pollock's stalwart champion, to suggest the descriptive title, which Pollock accepted. Pollock's canvases from this decisive phase of his career are considered to have transformed the experience of looking "at" a work of art into one of being immersed, upright, in its fullness. His mastery of chance, intuition, and control brought abstract expressionism to a new level. (http://www.jackson-pollock.org)

Willhem DeKooning, Woman III, by Willem de Kooning, 68 in × 48.5 in, oil on canvas

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. The hallmark of De Kooning's style was an emphasis on complex figure ground ambiguity. Background figures would overlap other figures causing them to appear in the foreground, which in turn might be overlapped by dripping lines of paint thus positioning the area into the background.(Wikipedia)

Woman 1, by Wilhem de Kooning, 1952, oil on canvas

Probably under the influence of Arshile Gorky, de Kooning embarked on a series of male figures, including Two Men Standing, Man, and Seated Figure (Classic Male), while simultaneously embarking on a more purist series of lyrically colored abstractions, such as Pink Landscape and Elegy. As his work progressed, the heightened colors and elegant lines of the abstractions began to creep into the more figurative works, and the coincidence of figures and abstractions continued well into the 1940s. (Wikipedia)

Willem de Kooning, Woman V (1952–53)

He taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in 1948 and at The Yale School of Art in 1950/51. In 1950, de Kooning was one of 17 prominent Abstract Expressionists and avant-garde artists to sign an open letter to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art accusing it of hostility towards “advanced art.” (Wikipedia)

At the latest from his participation in the 1954 Venice Biennale, where he was represented with one of his most important works, "Excavation", Willem de Kooning has been regarded as a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism. These years of his career were filled with numerous shows of his work and retrospectives. His exceptional œuvre is suffused with the duality of traditional figuration and Gestural Abstract painting.Willem de Kooning died in Springs, New York on 19 March 1997. http://www.willem-de-kooning.com

Orange, Red, Yellow, by Mark Rothko

No. 61, 1953, by Mark Rothko

White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), by Mark Rothko, 1950

White Center is part of Rothko's signature multiform style: several blocks of layered, complementary colors on a large canvas. The work was sold in May 2007 by Sotheby's on behalf of David Rockefeller to the Royal family of Qatar; Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his wife, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned. The painting sold for 72.84 million (USD), setting the record of the current most expensive post-war work of art sold at auction. White Center is part of Rothko's signature multiform style: several blocks of layered, complementary colors on a large canvas. The painting is from top to bottom, a yellow horizontal rectangle, a black horizontal strip, a narrow white rectangular band and the bottom half is lavender. The top half of the rose ground is deeper in colour and the bottom half is pale. It measures 205.8 × 141 cm.

Elegy to the Spanish Republic no. 110, by Robert Motherwell, 1971, 82 x 114 ins., acrylic with pencil and charcoal on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC.

Elegy To The Spanish Republic XXXIV, by Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell

American painter, printmaker and editor. A major figure of the Abstract Expressionist generation, in his mature work he encompassed both the expressive brushwork of action painting and the breadth of scale and saturated hues of color field painting, often with a marked emphasis on European traditions of decorative abstraction.

Motherwell decided to become an artist after seeing modern French painting during a trip to Paris in 1938–9, but in order to satisfy his father’s demands for a secure career he first studied art history from 1940 to 1941 under Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University, NY. Through Schapiro he met Roberto Matta and other exiled European artists associated with Surrealism; their use of automatism as a means of registering subconscious impulses was to have a lasting effect on Motherwell and on other American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and William Baziotes, whom he befriended in New York after a trip to Mexico in 1941 with Matta.

While in Mexico, Motherwell executed his first known works, the Mexican Sketchbook of 11 pen-and-ink drawings in black and white (artist’s col.; for first page, see Arnason, 1982, p. 29). These were influenced by Matta but were more abstract and spontaneous in appearance. The appeal of automatist spontaneity, however, was complemented for him by the clear structure, simple shapes and broad areas of flat color in paintings by Piet Mondrian, Picasso and Matisse.(http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4126)

Helen Frankenthaler

The daughter of New York State Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler and his wife Martha Lowenstein, she was born on December 12, 1928 in New York City. Her parents encouraged her talent from a young age and she was educated in progressive, experimental schools. However, Frankenthaler did not immerse herself in the growing avant-garde culture until early adulthood. It was then that she enrolled in the Dalton School where she studied under the great Mexican muralist Rufino Tamayo. After graduating from Bennington College, Frankenthaler met the critic Clement Greenberg who introduced her to prominent artists like Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Adolph Gottlieb. (http://www.cwhf.org)

Canal, 1963. Acrylic on canvas, 81 × 57 1/2 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

The Bay, 1963, by Helen Frankenthaler

"Nature Abhors a Vacuum," a 1973 painting by Helen Frankenthaler. Image courtesy the National Gallery of Art

Franz Kline (1910-1962), Untitled, 1949, oil on paper,

In the work of Franz Kline, two main tendencies emerged at an early stage that would later develop into a powerful contribution to the ‘gestural’ trend within Abstract Expressionism. Numerous small graphics, sketches and oils and the mural series Hot Jazz, 1940, reveal an interest in translating animated subjects into quick, rudimentary strokes. Kline admired and found inspiration in a wide range of artists notable for their fluency in handling paint, including Rembrandt, Goya, Manet, Sargent and Whistler. By contrast, an inclination to compose in terms of simplified areas was derived from academic training and perhaps also reflected Kline’s memories of his native Pennsylvania’s coal-mining region, with its stark scenery, locomotives and similar massive mechanical shapes to which the titles of his later abstract images sometimes referred.

Against the context of contemporary New York painting a move towards abstraction was inevitable for Franz Kline. In 1946 Kline began to generalize his subjects into series of lines and planes, which produced the semi-abstract mosaic of broad facets influenced by Cubism found in The Dancer, 1946. During the next three years a very dynamic and fluid handling emerged, revealing the impact of Bradley Walker Tomlin, Gorky and especially the black-and-white abstractions of de Kooning. From these artists Kline evidently saw that his oil medium was capable of a calligraphic freedom and that the vestiges of figures and objects could become those rapid marks, halfway between ciphers and pure brushstrokes, that collide together in shallow space. (www.moma.org)

Alpha Channeled, oil on canvas by Franz Kline, 1953; in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y. 200 ×128 cm.

Studies in ink on paper simultane-ously reinforced Kline’s sense of black and white as terse equivalents and allowed him to develop small emblematic compositions, usually based on a flurry of inter-locking curves and grid-like vectors. When de Kooning enlarged some of these drawings in 1948 as part of his own work using a Bell-Opticon projector, it affirmed Kline’s growing awareness that the sketch could be expanded to dramatic effect. (www.moma.org)

Franz Kline; Mahoning, 1956, Oil and paper collage on canvas. 80 x 100 in. (203.2 x 254 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.