EXHIBITION TEXT
ROOM 1
Introduction
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST NEW YORK
“The modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the
Renaissance or of any other past culture. Each age finds its own techniques.” —Jackson Pollock
This exhibition explores the movement that catapulted New York City to the centre of the art world and
redefined the possibilities of art. In the 1940s, a group of American artists set out to change the face of
painting. This generation had just lived through the Great Depression and the horrors of World War II,
including the Holocaust and the dropping of the atomic bomb. These acts of barbaric self-destruction threw the
concept of modern civilization into question.
The Abstract Expressionists shared the conviction that they must forge a new beginning for art. They sought to
invent a style of art that would reassert the highest ideals of humankind, create a new beginning and prove
human beings capable of greatness and beauty. Although their painting styles differed widely, the Abstract
Expressionists each believed abstract art was a powerful way to communicate personal identity, emotional
truth and profound human values.
Wall Panels
THE IRASCIBLES
“The Irascibles” refers to a group of Abstract Expressionist artists who came together in 1950 to write an open
letter protesting the conservative nature of art in America. The letter, which criticized the art establishment’s
hostility towards “advanced art,” was composed by Adolph Gottlieb, with help from Barnett Newman, Jackson
Pollock and Mark Rothko, and was signed by 18 artists. The media-savvy Newman hand-delivered a copy of
their letter to The New York Times on a Monday, typically a slow news day.
His strategy paid off as the newspaper ran the letter on its front page the next day. As part of its own coverage
of the New York art scene, Life magazine also decided to investigate. In 1951, 15 of the 18 artists assembled
for a now iconic photograph accompanying the Life article titled “Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight
Against Show.”
[Image caption:] American abstract artists “The Irascibles”. (Left to right, back to front): Willem de Kooning,
Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jimmy Ernst, Jackson
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Pollock, James Brooks, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Theodoros Stamos, Barnett
Newman and Mark Rothko.
[Image credit:] Life , 15 January 1951, p. 34. Photo: Nina Leen, Life Magazine, © Time Warner, Inc.
SURREAL INFLUENCE
“Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes.” —Arshile Gorky
Although Abstract Expressionists defined themselves by their desire to create art that was unlike anything that
had come before, the influence of Surrealism is undeniable. During the 1940s, the formative years of Abstract
Expressionism, New York was home to many renowned avant-garde and Surrealist artists who had fled
Europe and the Nazis. Surrealism valued the accidental, the involuntary, the blot, the image that arose from
the subconscious. Its artists emphasized spontaneity and an interest in myth and symbols.
Arshile Gorky’s career formed a bridge between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. The last major
painter considered a Surrealist, he is also widely acknowledged as one of the first Abstract Expressionists. His
deeply personal evocations of the body, landscape and the unconscious paved the way for the radical pure
abstraction that was to follow.
[Image caption:] Arshile Gorky smoking a cigarette at Gjon Mili’s studio, 1 January 1940
[Image credit:] Photo by Gjon Mili/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Artwork Texts
Arshile Gorky
American (born in Armenia), 1904–1948
Garden in Sochi
around 1943
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest.
Gorky was referred to as “the godfather” of Abstract Expressionism. His works exemplify the cross-currents of
influences (ranging from artistic and cultural to personal) that ran through the New York School. Like many of
his peers, Gorky was interested in exploring mythical subject matter in his work. Uniquely, however, he located
these themes in his personal history. This painting was inspired by the artist’s childhood memories of his
native Armenia. He wrote: “My father had a little garden with a few apple trees which had retired from giving
fruit. There was a ground constantly in shade where grew incalculable amounts of wild carrots, and porcupines
had made their nests.”
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Arshile Gorky
American (born in Armenia), 1904–1948
The Leaf of the Artichoke Is an Owl
1944
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection Fund.
Gorky’s influence over the Abstract Expressionists was immense, yet his works did not share the defining
qualities of Abstract Expressionism. They were not fully abstract, were painted on an easel, and were still
Surrealist in origin. Gorky was one of many European avant-garde and Surrealist artists living in exile in New
York during World War II. Like the Surrealists, Gorky explored spontaneous and automatic gestures in his art.
The shapes in this painting encourage free association – a mainstay of Surrealist intellectual activities.
Arshile Gorky
American (born in Armenia), 1904–1948
Agony
1947
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. A. Conger Goodyear Fund.
This painting’s fiery and intense colour palette was unlike anything Gorky had painted before. It is often
understood in relation to a series of traumatic events he experienced at the peak of his career. Beginning in
the mid-1940s, his studio burned down, he underwent a colostomy for cancer, he suffered a broken neck and
temporary paralysis of his painting arm in a car accident, and his wife left him, taking their children with her.
Unable to cope with the physical and emotional agony, Gorky committed suicide in 1948.
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Adolph Gottlieb
American, 1903–1974
Voyager’s Return
1946
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger.
In search of a new visual vocabulary that broke away from European and American traditions, Gottlieb
pioneered a new artistic model in his works beginning in 1941. Now known as “pictographs,” these works
aspired to create symbols that could transcend time and place. Gottlieb derived his inspiration from sources as
diverse as classical mythology, Oceanic, Melanesian, Native American and African visual cultures, as well as
modern psychoanalytic theory, art and literature. Often featuring boxlike structures or grids, his invented forms
were meant to express the spirit of language without literally constituting it.
Adolph Gottlieb
American, 1903–1974
Man Looking at Woman
1949
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist.
“I frequently hear the question, ‘What do these images mean?’ That is simply the wrong question. Visual
images do not have to conform to either verbal thinking or optical facts. A better question would be: ‘Do these
images convey any emotional truth?’”
In the 1940s Gottlieb began to emulate the art of early Native American and Middle Eastern cultures. His
explorations inspired “pictograph” paintings such as this one, which features hieroglyphic-like script in a series
of boxes. Gottlieb deliberately avoided using decipherable signs. Like many Abstract Expressionists, he strived
to include symbols and meanings in his work that could be understood by anyone of any time.
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Room 2
Wall Panel
CAMARADERIE AND COMPETITION: THE CLUB, 1949–1962
“The Club came along at just the right time. It was so important, getting together, arguing, thinking.” —Willem
de Kooning
In the late 1940s, in search of coffee and companionship, a small group of artists led by close friends Willem
de Kooning and Franz Kline set up a meeting place which they cheekily called “The Club.” De Kooning, never
forgetting his working-class roots in Rotterdam’s docklands, felt a profound solidarity with artists, society’s
outsiders. Ironically, this gathering of outsiders in a grubby loft in Greenwich Village became the intellectual
centre of the new painting and the site of hotly contested aesthetic debates.
While the actual artmaking happened in artists’ studios, discussions at The Club shaped how artists, critics
and the public talked and thought about abstract art. At its height in the early 1950s, The Club boasted as
many as 150 dues-paying members. Most significant New York-based artists, gallery owners, critics and
curators passed through its doors, making it a vital part in the emergence and development of Abstract
Expressionism.
[Image caption:] Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning in his New York City studio, 25 May 1959
[Image credit:] Photo by Arnold Newman/Getty Images
Artwork Texts
Willem de Kooning
American (born in The Netherlands), 1904–1997
Painting
1948
enamel and oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
De Kooning was one of the leaders of Abstract Expressionism and close friends with many of its artists. Early
in his career, he shared a studio with Arshile Gorky, whose Surrealist style influenced de Kooning’s early
images. However, the gestural paintings of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline inspired him to do his first black
and white abstract works in 1946. The figure was never, however, far from his mind. “Even abstract shapes
must have a likeness,” he once said. If you let your eyes linger on these black and white forms, what do they
resemble?
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Willem de Kooning
American (born in The Netherlands), 1904–1997
Woman I
1950–1952
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
De Kooning famously said, “Flesh is the reason oil paint was invented.” Although he created many abstract
paintings in the late 1940s, he continually returned to the figure, specifically the motif of the woman. He
wrestled with this painting for months, making numerous preliminary studies, repainting the canvas repeatedly,
and at times completely abandoning it. He may have been anticipating the skepticism that greeted his revival
of figure painting at a time when abstraction dominated the burgeoning New York art scene.
Willem de Kooning
American (born in The Netherlands), 1904–1997
A Tree in Naples
1960
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection.
This work is part of a group of abstract paintings inspired by the landscape. De Kooning uses a few powerful,
expansive brush strokes to evoke the vistas of colour found in the natural world. Describing the experience
that inspired these works, he said, “Just coming around roads, some place, and having the sensation of a
piece of it, a piece of nature, like a fence, something on the road.… And I really get very elated by again
looking, by again seeing that the sky is blue, that the grass is green.”
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Room 3
Wall Panels
THE LANDSCAPE OF ABEX: COUNTRY VERSUS CITY
“A really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image.” —Helen Frankenthaler
Although Abstract Expressionism is closely linked to the urban environs of New York, the American landscape
still played an influential role in the artistic consciousness. Many abstract artists worked in close proximity to
nature. Rothko, Newman, Motherwell and Frankenthaler all spent numerous summers in rural and seaside
towns outside the city. Pollock and his artist wife Lee Krasner moved to a farmhouse in pastoral Long Island in
1945, and both Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning also retreated from the city to paint in rural settings. The
vast surfaces that define Abstract Expressionist painting evoke the beauty and complexity of the natural world,
expanding the tradition of American landscape painting.
[Image caption:] Abstract and expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler tips the contents of a can of paint onto
a canvas on the floor, 1969.
[Image credit:] Photo by Ernst Haas/Getty Images
ABEX AND PHOTOGRAPHY
“Black and white are the colours of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to
which mankind is forever subjected.” —Robert Frank
Like the Abstract Expressionist painters, photographers such as Aaron Siskind, Robert Frank, Harry Callahan
and Rudy Burckhardt sought to break with tradition and forge a new path for their medium. The works of Frank
and Burckhardt provide an insider’s glimpse into the downtown Manhattan scene during the 1940s, a decade
central to the development of postwar American art. Siskind and Callahan, on the other hand, broke away from
representing a recognizable physical object. They focused instead on the interaction of shapes, textures and
tones (in an almost painterly manner), creating expressive abstract compositions.
[Image caption:] Robert Frank, New York, around 1947–1948
[Image credit:] Photographer: Ronny Jacques
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Artwork Texts
Helen Frankenthaler
American, born 1928
Jacob’s Ladder
1957
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Hyman N. Glickstein.
As a young New York artist in the 1950s, Frankenthaler was very much inspired by the Abstract
Expressionists. Influential art critic Clement Greenberg recommended she spend her summer studying with
Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was there that she met her future husband, Abstract
Expressionist artist Robert Motherwell. Like Jackson Pollock, Frankenthaler laid her canvases on the floor to
paint them, experimenting with new possibilities of handling paint. She uniquely poured and moved thinned
paint, creating areas of colour that soaked into unprimed canvases. This would become her signature style:
the stain painting.
Clyfford Still
American, 1904–1980
1944–N, No. 2
1944
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection.
Clyfford Still developed his abstract painting style in relative isolation, working alone in San Francisco in the
late 1930s and early 1940s. Still’s shift from representational painting to abstraction occurred between 1938
and 1942, earlier than his New York colleagues who were still painting in figurative-surrealist styles, including
Jackson Pollock. Considered by many to be the most anti-traditional of the Abstract Expressionists, Still is
credited with laying the groundwork for the movement. He sought to create a new kind of abstraction that was
free from decipherable symbols and, by extension, the dominating legacy of European art.
Clyfford Still
American, 1904–1980
1951–T, No. 3
1951
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund.
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Still moved to New York in 1945 at the request of his friend Mark Rothko, and lived there during the 1950s, at
the height of Abstract Expressionism. This was also a time when he became increasingly critical of the art
world. He was fervently anti-establishment and despised what he called “the gutter-club vermin” of the art
world, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Still severed ties with his New York gallerists and moved
to Maryland in 1960 in an attempt to distance himself from the commercial art world.
Aaron Siskind Photographs
Often called the father of modern photography, Siskind abandoned the idea that a photograph is a reflection of
the world. Directing his lens toward torn billboards, deteriorating walls, rocks and textured surfaces, he created
images that could be viewed as Abstract Expressionist paintings. This is no coincidence. Among Siskind’s
closest friends were Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman. Reflecting on
these images, Siskind explained, “For the first time in my life, subject matter, as such, had ceased to be of
primary importance. Instead, I found myself involved in the relationships of these objects, so much so that
these pictures turned out to be deeply moving and personal experiences.”
Robert Frank Photographs
The photographs of Robert Frank convey a sparse yet focused urban environment. Like his Abstract
Expressionist friends Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, his black and white tones conjure a belief in the
power of the creative act. Frank was also closely associated with the Beat Generation. His landmark
photography book Les Américains (The Americans), a collection of provocative images of “American-ness”,
featured an introduction by Jack Kerouac. His first film, Pull My Daisy, was narrated by Kerouac and starred
Allen Ginsberg. In 1970 he moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where he still lives today.
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Room 4
Wall Panel
DRAWING AND SCULPTURE
“An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing.” —Louise Bourgeois
From the 1940s through the 1960s, Abstract Expressionism in New York extended into a wide variety of
mediums. In addition to painting, this gallery features sculpture and works on paper from artists who moved in
Abstract Expressionist circles. Like the painting of the time, these works share a strong association with premodern art, the subconscious and mythology, and demonstrate vigorous physicality and gestural composition.
The styles of these works on paper vary as much as their painting counterparts. You encounter everything
from Bourgeois’s suggestive intimate drawings to Motherwell’s blotted poetic elegy, from David Smith’s
primordial figures to Noguchi’s pragmatic work sheets. Displayed together, the works reveal the artists’
creative processes and showcase the robust range of work produced during this period.
Artwork Texts
Louise Bourgeois
American (born in France), 1911–2010
Sleeping Figure II
1959
bronze
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
In 1938 Louise Bourgeois moved from France to New York, where she came into contact with a number of the
European Surrealist artists who had taken refuge in the United States during World War II. Surrealism – with
its biomorphic forms and totemic figures – was just one of many inspirations for Bourgeois. She also made use
of her own biography to address larger themes of motherhood, femininity and sexuality. <i>Sleeping Figure
II<i> is part of a group of more than 80 totemic works originally carved in wood known as “Personages.”
Louise Bourgeois
American (born in France), 1911–2010
Throbbing Pulse
1944
ink on paper
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist.
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Bourgeois abandoned her mathematics studies in Paris in 1938 to pursue art in New York. She befriended
expatriate Surrealists, embracing the eccentric forms in their work. Over a career that spanned seven
decades, Bourgeois returned to certain motifs and themes across a huge variety of mediums. In these works
on paper, you’ll see references to bodies, hair and plant forms. They appear abstract but also evoke the body.
She titled many of her abstract forms with attributes of energy, including the works on display here – for
example, “throb”, “hang” (<i>Hanging Weeds<i>) and “ascend” (<i>Slow Ascent<i>).
Norman Lewis
American, 1909–1979
City Night
1949
oil on wood panel
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis.
Lewis’s painting, like the work of many Abstract Expressionists, straddles the boundary between abstraction
and figuration. The predominantly dark palette of this work evokes the nocturnal cityscape of its title. Twin
columns of luminous colour appear to hover over a deep, black expanse, while delicate lines crisscross its
surface (perhaps laundry or power lines). Here Lewis has transformed this commonplace scene into an
atmospheric and luminous abstraction. “The elements of painting constitute a language in themselves,” the
artist wrote in 1949.
Isamu Noguchi
American, 1904–1988
My Pacific (Polynesian Culture)
1942
driftwood
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Florene May Schoenborn Bequest.
“To me the essence of sculpture derives very much from the material, you know, the truth of the material.” –
Isamu Noguchi
Noguchi spent his lifetime grappling with his dual identity. His father was Japanese, while his mother was
American, and he had lived part of his life in each country. During World War II, he voluntarily entered an
internment camp in Arizona for Japanese Americans in hopes of organizing an arts and crafts guild for
detainees. Noguchi often looked to natural materials rather than limiting himself to industrially produced
ones. He created this sculpture after his time in the camp, using driftwood he had collected in Arizona and
California.
Richard Pousette-Dart
American, 1916–1992
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Fugue Number 2
1943
oil and sand on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously.
This work features heavily outlined circles and fantastic shapes that suggest ancient or totemic forms.
Pousette-Dart was interested in Asian philosophy (especially Zen Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism’s
Bhagavad-Gita) as well as the mythology and visual language of the African, Pre-Columbian, Oceanic and
North American Aboriginal cultures. He spoke of his art in spiritual terms, but didn’t subscribe to any one
particular religion. “I strive to express the spiritual nature of the Universe,” he said. “Painting is for me a
dynamic balance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcending, yet solid and real.”
David Smith
American, 1906–1965
History of LeRoy Borton
February 17, 1956
steel
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund.
This steel sculpture was named after LeRoy Borton, a blacksmith who had helped Smith power forge a series
of sculptures the previous year. “Borton’s interest in my work was more than that of the subcontracting of man
and machine,” Smith said. “He was an excellent craftsman developed in the old school of hard forging,
tempering of chisels, wagon repair, etc. In the days we worked together we became friendly, talking of
metalworking methods, etc…. History of LeRoy Borton is an homage to a friend.”
Lee Krasner
American, 1908–1984
Untitled
1949
oil on composition board
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Alfonso A. Ossorio.
For many years, Krasner was best known as the wife of Jackson Pollock. She was a tireless promoter and
manager of his career. But she was also a painter. This work is part of Krasner’s <i>Little Image<i> series. She
applied thick paint – sometimes directly from the tube – in rhythmic and repetitive strokes. Like many of her artist
peers in the 1940s, Krasner invented a language of private symbols inspired by hieroglyphics. Her symbols
embody a spirit of language on which you can impart your own meaning.
Lee Krasner
American, 1908–1984
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Gaea
1966
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Kay Sage Tanguy Fund.
Krasner reinvented her artistic style many times during her lengthy and distinguished career. She struggled
with the public’s reception of her identity, both as a woman and as the wife of Jackson Pollock. She often
signed her works with a genderless “L.K.” In the mid-1960s her work took on a spirit of free invention, like this
painting named after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. Her broad, sweeping strokes of paint were quite
different from her earlier works. Krasner also rejected the notion that her painting was devoid of content – she
declared that she “wouldn’t dream of” creating a painting from a solely abstract idea.
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Room 5
Wall Panels
ABEX AND THE SIGNATURE STYLE
“I paint not the things I see but the feelings they arouse in me.”
—Franz Kline
The Abstract Expressionist movement encompasses a huge variety of abstract painting styles, embodying the
American emphasis on self-reliance and individuality. The horrors of World War II had inspired intense selfreflection, and the paintings in this exhibition represent personal explorations of identity and the search for an
understanding of one’s place in the world. Despite their different styles, the Abstract Expressionists did share a
common approach to artmaking, which was direct, often improvisational and highly experiential. It was this
method that allowed each artist to employ a distinct way of creating work that could be recognized as their own
“signature style.” As one critic explained, they “wanted to believe that in the subjective process of painting itself
they would find their own definition.”
[Image caption:] Franz Kline, around 1960
[Image credit:] Walter Auerbach, photographer. Rudi Blesh papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution
MAKING IT PERSONAL: THE SECOND GENERATION
“The painting is just a surface to be covered.”
—Joan Mitchell
The 1950s brought fresh experiments in abstract imagery by not only the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism,
but also by so-called “second-generation” artists. This included women artists such as Joan Mitchell, Helen
Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner. While these artists adopted the modes of Abstract Expressionism, such as
spontaneity, improvisation and a focus on process, they also replaced the urgent existential visions of their
predecessors with more lyrical approaches.
Many prominent Abstract Expressionists titled their paintings with only numbers or dates to shift viewers’ focus
to the painting itself and to encourage individual interpretations. Yet artists such as Joan Mitchell took a less
oblique approach. Not afraid to reference the natural world in her painterly explorations of identity, she
encouraged these associations by giving her paintings titles such as Ladybug (on display here). Though
undoubtedly abstract, Mitchell’s painting also celebrates nature and landscape.
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[Image caption:] Joan Mitchell, 1950s
[Image credit:] Courtesy Joan Mitchell Foundation and Cheim & Read Gallery, New York.
Artwork Texts
Joan Mitchell
American, 1925–1992
Ladybug
1957
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
Although she is often included in conversations about the Abstract Expressionists, in some respects Mitchell
challenged conventional wisdom. Indeed, she left New York to join other artists in Paris, including Montrealborn painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, her partner of 25 years. While most Abstract Expressionists were devoted to
individualistic self-expression, she saw her abstract works as dealing with nature and the outside world. She
declared that her work was “about landscape, not about me.”
Franz Kline
American, 1910–1962
Chief
1950
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David M. Solinger.
Although his black and white brush strokes suggest spontaneity, Kline seldom worked that way. He made
drawings and small studies for most of these large-scale paintings. He also used a projector to magnify parts
of sketches of objects to the point of abstraction, which he would then reproduce as large paintings. Chief was
the name of a locomotive Kline remembered from his childhood, when he had loved the railway. Many viewers
see machinery in his images, but Kline claimed to paint “not what I see but the feelings aroused in me by that
looking.”
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LP Covers
Philip Guston
American (born in Canada), 1913–1980
New Directions in Music 2 by Morton Feldman
1959
LP cover
The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Franz Kline
American, 1910–1962
Feldman Brown by Morton Feldman and Earle Brown
1962
LP cover
The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Just as visual artists sought to create a new art, composers were seeking to create a new sound. One of these
experimental composers was Morton Feldman, who was closely connected to many of the Abstract
Expressionists. He wrote a number of pieces inspired by or dedicated to his artist friends, including Franz
Kline, Philip Guston (who designed these two album covers), Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Mark
Rothko.
Pick up the headphones at the nearby listening station to hear Feldman’s new approaches to tonality, rhythm,
pitch and volume.
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Room 6
JACKSON POLLOCK
“Every good artist paints what he is.” —Jackson Pollock
During the late 1940s, Jackson Pollock pioneered a bold approach to painting, revolutionizing the production
of art. By dripping, flinging and spattering paint onto a canvas he laid on the floor, he defied centuries of
tradition. No longer using an easel or even brush strokes, Pollock’s new technique engaged his entire body.
As one critic described it, the canvas was used as “an arena in which to act,” with painting becoming
choreography. Confronted by the radical nature of his new work, Pollock asked his wife Lee Krasner, “Is this a
painting?”
He was the first abstract painter celebrated by the American mass media. Yet Pollock’s innovation came with
profound self-doubt, as he battled alcoholism and depression. His meteoric career abruptly ended one night in
1956, when he crashed his Oldsmobile convertible and died. He was 44.
[Image caption:] Jackson Pollock
[Image credit:] © 2011 Hans Namuth Ltd.
Artwork Texts
Jackson Pollock
American, 1912–1956
Stenographic Figure
around 1942
oil on linen
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bareiss Fund.
Much of Pollock’s early work is characterized by a sombre palette and congested pictorial space, but this
painting is bright and airy. On top of the flat fields of colour, Pollock painted two human-like forms – one near
the right edge of the canvas and another just left of centre – then made fine-lined calligraphic brush strokes
across the entire surface. This painting garnered praise when it was first shown in 1943. Artist Piet Mondrian
described it as “the most interesting work I’ve seen so far in America.”
Jackson Pollock
American, 1912–1956
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The She-Wolf
1943
oil, gouache and plaster on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
In the early 1940s Pollock explored primeval or mythological themes in his work. The wolf in this painting may
allude to the animal that suckled Romulus and Remus, the mythical twin founders of Rome, in the tale of the
city’s birth. This work was featured in Pollock’s first solo exhibition, in New York in 1943. The Museum of
Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired it the following year – the first Pollock work to enter a museum
collection. More important than the suggestive shape of the she-wolf is the action on top of it. The colour and
lines suggest language or a message being frantically transcribed, yet Pollock denies viewers any explicit
meaning, leaving you to determine your own.
Jackson Pollock
American, 1912–1956
Full Fathom Five
1947
oil and mixed media on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Peggy Guggenheim.
This is one of Pollock’s earliest “drip” paintings. It features lacy top layers of house paint swirled onto an
underlayer created with a brush and palette knife. A closer look reveals an assortment of objects embedded in
the surface, including cigarette butts, nails, thumbtacks, buttons, coins and a key. Though many of these items
are obscured by paint, they contribute to the work’s dense and encrusted appearance. The title, suggested by
a neighbour, comes from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, in which Ariel describes death by shipwreck: “Full
fathom five thy father lies / Of his bones are coral made / Those are pearls that were his eyes.”
Jackson Pollock
American, 1912–1956
Number 1A, 1948
1948
oil and enamel paint on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
While the style of “drip” painting has become synonymous with the name Jackson Pollock, the artist has
autographed this particular work even more directly. You can see several of his handprints in the upper right
corner. Around this time Pollock stopped giving his paintings titles and instead began to number them. His
wife, artist Lee Krasner, later explained, “Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a painting for what it
is – pure painting.” Collectors did not immediately appreciate Pollock’s radical new style, and when first
exhibited in 1949, this painting did not sell.
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Jackson Pollock
American, 1912–1956
Echo: Number 25, 1951
1951
enamel paint on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest and the Mr. and Mrs.
David Rockefeller Fund.
This work is a radical departure from Pollock’s earlier “drip” paintings, which had brought him great fame just a
year or so earlier. This painting is sparsely poetic, just inky black on raw canvas. Though abstract, the painting
teases us with lines that evoke figues. Pollock recognized this, and wrote in a letter to a friend, “I’ve had a
period of drawing on canvas in black – with some of my early images coming thru – think the non-objectivists
will find them disturbing – and the kids who think it simple to splash a Pollock out.”
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Room 7
MARK ROTHKO
“I’m interested in expressing the big emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom.” —Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko is considered one of the foremost figures of Abstract Expressionism. He believed painting was an
emotional and spiritual experience, for both himself and its viewers. By the late 1940s, he reached what would
become his signature style. Painting two or three soft-edged, luminescent rectangles, stacked weightlessly on
top of one another and floating horizontally against a ground, he sought to transport the viewer to new realms
of emotion and perception. Although his paintings may appear simplistic and repetitive, their composition,
visual effects and emotional impact are complex. For Rothko, “a painting is not a picture of an experience, it is
an experience.” One viewer’s personal experience of a Rothko painting cannot duplicate that of another.
[Image caption:] Mark Rothko, 1954
[Image credit:] Henry Elkan, photographer. Rudi Blesh papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution.
Artwork Texts
Mark Rothko
American (born in Latvia), 1903–1970
Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea
1944
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bequest of Mrs. Mark Rothko through The Mark Rothko Foundation,
Inc.
Rothko, like his fellow Abstract Expressionists in the 1940s, was working toward creating a new art. Influenced
by Surrealism, Rothko looked inward, to his own unconscious mind, for inspiration and material, and sought to
create universal symbols in his work drawn from the subconscious. This painting features two creatures
dancing between sea and sky, surrounded by arabesques, spirals and stripes. Rothko explained that the forms
“have no direct association with any particular visible experience, but in them one recognizes the principle and
passion of organisms.”
Mark Rothko
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American (born in Latvia), 1903–1970
No. 1 (Untitled)
1948
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist.
In the late 1940s Rothko eliminated the figures and organic imagery that dominated his earlier works, and
began to focus on the relationship between space, colour and scale in paintings that later became known as
“Multiforms.” In this work Rothko applied thin washes of paint to canvas to create a multitude of irregular forms
that ebb and flow across the picture plane. Its large size and abstract style point toward the artist’s signature
Colour Field paintings, which he began a year after completing this work.
Mark Rothko
American (born in Latvia), 1903–1970
No. 5/No. 22
1950 (dated on reverse 1949)
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist.
If you spend time looking at this painting, you will see how it transforms your perception of shape and colour
with each passing moment. The rectangles appear to hover just above its surface. Each of the work’s coloured
segments, when stared at individually, affect how you perceive the colour of those adjacent to it. However,
Rothko did not want his pictures appreciated solely for their visual qualities. He said, “If you are only moved by
colour relationships, then you miss the point. I’m interested in expressing the big emotions – tragedy, ecstasy,
doom.”
Mark Rothko
American (born in Latvia), 1903–1970
No. 10
1950
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Philip Johnson.
Between 1949 and 1950, Rothko simplified the composition of his paintings and arrived at his signature style:
three dominant planes of colour that softly and subtly merge into one another. He explained, “The progression
of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all
obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer.” This was Rothko’s first
painting to enter the collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. It was considered so
radical at the time that a MoMA trustee resigned in protest.
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Mark Rothko
American (born in Latvia), 1903–1970
No. 16 (Red, Brown and Black)
1958
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund.
In 1957, Rothko abandoned the bright colour palette that had come to characterize much of his work. With a
few exceptions, for the remainder of his career he painted with shadowy hues such as the layers of rich
purples, maroons and browns that you see here. Rothko once said to a friend, “Often, toward nightfall, there’s
a feeling in the air of mystery, threat, frustration – all of these at once. I would like my paintings to have the
quality of such moments.” Rothko hoped that these compositional strategies would invite visual and emotional
contemplation on the part of the viewer, creating the conditions for silence and reflection.
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Room 8
Wall Panels
BARNETT NEWMAN
“I would prefer going to Churchill, Canada, to walk the tundra than go to Paris.” —Barnett Newman
In his 1948 essay “The Sublime is Now,” Newman called for a new art, stripped to its essentials, that would
deal with “absolute emotions.” He sought to create works that evoked the vastness of the natural world, as well
as explored an individual’s place in it. “The self, terrible and constant, is for me the subject matter of painting,”
he asserted. Newman’s preoccupation with the sublime and the self exemplifies the great feeling of pride
among artists in post-World War II New York. American art had finally developed its own strong identity – a
faith in the redemptive power of art and relentless optimism. Despite Newman’s lofty artistic goals, his
rectangles of colour split by vertical stripes baffled critics and colleagues alike at his first solo exhibition in
1950. His work was rejected as impersonal, something that a house painter, rather than an artist, would do. It
wasn’t until the late 1950s that the artworld was ready to recognize him as a major force in Abstract
Expressionism.
[Image caption:] Barnett Newman in his Wall Street studio, 1951
ROBERT MOTHERWELL
“Abstract expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.” —Robert
Motherwell
Motherwell, a prolific writer and engaging speaker, became a leading spokesperson for Abstract
Expressionism. He often lectured about the ideologies of the new art movement of which he was a vital part.
He is best known for his Elegy to the Spanish Republic series, a life-spanning project inspired by the 1930s
Spanish Civil War. The tragedy of that conflict, in which a defiantly idealistic Spanish Republic was
overwhelmed by the brutal fascist militia of Francisco Franco, provided the impetus for Motherwell to dedicate
a life’s work to the cause of celebrating (and mourning) freedom. As a dictatorship replaced its democracy,
Spain’s fate became an emblem of a larger European struggle for freedom. Throughout this historic event,
Motherwell also painted meditations on the larger themes of death, loss and sexuality.
[Image caption:] Robert Motherwell in New York City, 27 March 1959
[Image credit:] Photo by Arnold Newman/Getty Images
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Artwork Texts
Ad Reinhardt
American, 1913–1967
Abstract Painting
1960–1961
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase (by exchange).
Many of the artists in this exhibition continued to work into the 1960s and later. Reinhardt began a series of
“black” paintings in 1960 and devoted the rest of his career to exploring the possibilities of these restrictive
parameters. At first this painting seems to be a flat black surface. But when you look at it longer, several
shades of black and an underlying geometric structure appear. Reinhardt tried to produce “a pure, abstract,
non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting – an object that is selfconscious (no unconsciousness), ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art.”
Barnett Newman
American, 1905–1970
Onement I
1948
oil on canvas and oil on masking tape on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Annalee Newman.
Newman proclaimed this painting to be his artistic breakthrough, giving the work an importance that belies its
modest size. This was the first time the artist used a vertical band of colour to define the spatial structure of his
work. The band, later dubbed a “zip,” became Newman’s signature mark. First he set the masking tape directly
on top of the maroon background. He then applied a bright orange colour to the masking tape with a palette
knife, creating an irregular band that both divides and unites the painting. The fact that the masking tape
remains shows us how much of an experiment it really was for Newman.
Barnett Newman
American, 1905–1970
Abraham
1949
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Philip Johnson Fund.
Newman believed deeply in the spiritual content of abstract art. Abraham refers to the father of Judaism,
Christianity and the Israelites, as told in the Bible’s Book of Genesis. A “knight of faith,” Abraham believed in
the word of God and risked all in His name. Like Abraham, Newman conquered an immense fear of the
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unknown with faith. “I thought the title Abraham would indicate that it was more than black on black,” explained
Newman. “I never had black on black…the terror of it was intense. It took me weeks to arrive at the point
where I finally did it. And it was, to a certain extent, the beginning of my new life.”
Robert Motherwell
American, 1915–1991
The Little Spanish Prison
1941–1944
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Renate Ponsold Motherwell.
Though abstract and “deliberately freehand,” the repeated vertical bands in this painting suggest
imprisonment, while the rectangle can be seen as a window. Keenly aware of Surrealism’s emphasis on
unrehearsed or “automatic” gestures, Motherwell began this painting by pouring a thin, dark pigment on the
canvas. The work’s bright palette was inspired by a trip to Mexico, while its title is a reference to the Spanish
Civil War (1936–1939). For Motherwell, the Spanish Republic’s fight against a brutal dictator symbolized
global struggles for freedom. He considered this painting “the first picture in which I hit something that is deep
in my character.”
Robert Motherwell
American, 1915–1991
Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 108
1965–1967
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Charles Mergentime Fund.
Motherwell Elegies to the Spanish Republic (more than 100 paintings completed between 1948 and 1967)
were intended as a “lamentation or funeral song” after the Spanish Civil War. Motherwell described the Elegies
as his “private insistence that a terrible death happened that should not be forgot. But the pictures are also
general metaphors of the contrast between life and death, and their interrelation.” His recurring motif here is a
rough black oval in varying sizes and distortions. While the ovals have various associations, Motherwell
himself related them to the display of a dead bull’s testicles, the ritual performed by Spanish matadors in the
bullfighting ring.
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Room 9
PHILIP GUSTON
“I should like to paint like a man who has never seen a painting.” —Philip Guston
In the 1960s, Guston began to question the relevance of abstract painting, the style of painting for which he
was renowned. He found he could not justify abstraction at a time when America was being transformed by the
Civil Rights movement, social upheaval, a foreign war and domestic assassination. In 1968, Guston took the
audacious step of reintroducing the human figure into his painting. Using a shocking new visual vocabulary,
these works made explicit the humanist values underlying Abstract Expressionism. The return to figuration
satisfied an urgent need for Guston to justify his work and the role of art in society. When Guston exhibited his
new style in 1970, critics and colleagues were stunned. They felt Guston had forsaken the purity of
abstraction. Guston’s artist friend Willem de Kooning, one of the few that understood what he was trying to
achieve, embraced Guston and said, “Do you know what the real subject is? Freedom.”
[Image caption:] Philip Guston in his New York loft, around 1956–1957
[Image credit:] Arthur Swoger (born 1912), courtesy of McKee Gallery
FREEDOM AND THE COLD WAR
“New York has begun to be seriously regarded as the futuristic artistic capital of the Western Hemisphere.”
—Foreword, The New American Painting
By the late 1950s, Abstract Expressionism had been recognized as a dominant force in American Painting.
However, in contrast to its fervent focus on individuality and freedom of expression, America was becoming an
increasingly repressive society. Cold War tensions fuelled fears of a traitorous enemy within – communists.
Faced with the perceived threat of communism, a singular notion of American identity and patriotism was
being shaped by government investigations, mass consumerism and mass media.
It was in the midst of this atmosphere of hyper-patriotism that Abstract Expressionism was promoted as a
symbol of American cultural freedom, in contrast to the state repression of Soviet Russia. In 1958 the Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York assembled the definitive Abstract Expressionism survey exhibition, titled
The New American Painting . The show was sent abroad by the US government to eight major European cities
that encircled the Cold War’s Iron Curtain. Abstract Expressionism had become Exhibit A in the display of
American cultural prestige, a visual declaration of freedom and liberty, embodying the US’s new role as a
global superpower.
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Artwork Texts
Philip Guston
American (born in Canada), 1913–1980
Painting
1954
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Philip Johnson Fund.
Although Guston’s career began and ended with figurative painting, for sixteen years he devoted himself
wholly to abstraction. His work from this period is relatively modest in scale when compared to that of his
Abstract Expressionist peers. He applied paint in short, thick strokes using small brushes and pigments
specially ground to achieve a creamy appearance. He worked very close to the canvas, often without a
predetermined plan. “The desire for direct expression became so strong that even the interval necessary to
reach back to the palette beside me became too long,” he said. “I forced myself to paint the entire work without
stepping back to look at it.”
Philip Guston
American (born in Canada), 1913–1980
Edge of Town
1969
oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Edward R. Broida.
In 1970, Guston shocked critics and colleagues alike by exhibiting paintings in an entirely new style. His
figurative, almost cartoonish, work sought to confront an America in the throes of upheaval and reform. This
painting of hooded Klu Klux Klan members was his response to the brutality of a repressive society. Guston
once said of these paintings, “They are self-portraits. I perceive myself as being behind the hood…. The idea
of evil fascinated me…. I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be
evil?”
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