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Introduction

New York School Abstraction

November 9, 2001 - February 17, 2002

In 1949, the artist Robert Motherwell coined the phrase "New York School" to describe the group of Abstract Expressionists who were working in Manhattan after the Second World War. These artists typically explored non-representational styles that were characterized by the use of gestural brushwork - or Action Painting - and flattened, abstract forms. There was no "New York School" academy, other than the exchange of ideas at various downtown studios, at the Cedar Bar, and at an organization called the Artists' Club. Exhibition opportunities included the "9th Street" New York Painting and Sculpture annuals and shows at the Stable Gallery and the Charles Egan and Betty Parsons Galleries.

A number of the "New York School" artists were immigrants, and many were war veterans or persons who had contributed to the war effort at home. Among the latter was Grace Hartigan, who had been a draftsman in a defense plant. Some had been employed by the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s, but all rejected the social realism of that period. The art that replaced it celebrated the two-dimensional surface with personalized, often aggressive, paint application.

Several "New York School" painters continued to explore figural motifs, but a majority of the artists in this loose association moved even further away from recognizable content. Earlier German Expressionist and French Cubist and Surrealist paintings were among the sources for their work, which found expression in pictographs, automatic writing, collage, loose patterning, and studies of pure color and line.

Although the principles of Abstract Expressionism were explored across the United States after the war, a significant number of artists first tested its theories as part of the "New York School" group. This exhibition, which is selected principally from the Museum's collection, only partially represents the participants. It serves as an indication of the vitality of this postwar movement that renewed modem art and made New York its center in the second half of the 20th century.

Selected Objects

Willem de Kooning

Black and White Abstraction, ca. 1950

Karl Knaths

The Rooster, 1948

Ad Reinhardt

No. 18, 1956

Larry Rivers

Portrait of Berdie, 1953

Joan Mitchell

Untitled, 1966

Charles Green Shaw

Impact in Space, 1959

Philip Guston

Winter Forms, 1963

Theodoros Stamos

Black Mountain, 1950

Aaron Siskind

Gloucester, 1949

Buffie Johnson

Palimpsest, ca. 1955

Philip Pearlstein

Ancient Building, 1959-60

Franz Kline

Studio Shapes, 1951

Helen Frankenthaler

Holocaust, 1955

Grace Hartigan

Homage to Matisse, 1955

Peter Busa

Autumn Foil, 1900s

Mark Rothko

Untitled, 1954

David Smith

Untitled, 1960

Hans Hofmann

Abstraction (red-yellow contra blue-black), 1954

Anne Ryan

The Quest, ca. 1945-1949

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

New York School Abstraction

November 9, 2001 - February 17, 2002
View Checklist PDF

RISD Museum

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