Dripping, flinging, rolling, soaking—the Abstract Expressionists did everything academic tradition said not to do with paint.
1945 - 1980
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Hedda Sterne, Number 3—1957
Stripes of industrial spray paint on this canvas recall the industrial city and undersides of highways
Norman Lewis, Untitled
Lewis leaves behind the figure for abstracted fragments at the end of World War II
Beauford Delaney, Marian Anderson
Delaney celebrates the famous opera singer Marian Anderson as a modern icon of Black excellence and civil rights
Mark Bradford on Clyfford Still
"To use the whole social fabric of our society as a point of departure for abstraction reanimates it, dusts it off."
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm
Looking closely at Jackson Pollock's great drip painting, Autumn Rhythm
The Case for Jackson Pollock
Pollock dripped, flung, scattered, and poured paint on canvases spread out on the floor—but why?
Mark Rothko, No. 210/No. 211 (Orange), 1960
Just because a painting isn’t full of angels doesn’t mean it isn’t spiritual and transcendent.
Willem de Kooning, Woman, I
De Kooning painted image after image on this canvas, continually wiping it down and starting again.
Lee Krasner, Untitled
Krasner severed the link between art and the everyday world, making important breakthroughs in abstraction.
Mark Rothko (at MoMA)
Rothko wanted his paintings hung as low as possible, so the viewer could enter the painting.
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