Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M the non-figurative approach of European abstract schools such as Futurism, the Bauhaus and Ana- lytical and Synthetic Cubism. This style of art encompasses a wide range of artists with different approaches but generally has an image of being rebellious even to the point of being nihilistic. POLLOCK AND ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM *main source for biographies and art movements is Abstract expressionism was primarily an Amer- http://en.wikipedia.org/ ican art movement that developed after the second world war. It was the first North American move- ment to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world. The movement's name is derived from a com- bination of the emotional intensity of the German Expressionists artists from the early 1900's with Namuth, Hans (1915-1990) © Copyright"The Artist in 1950," research photograph associated with the exhibition, "Jackson Pollock." December 19, 1956 through February 3, 1957. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gelatin-silver print, 8 x 8" (20.3 x 20.3 cm). Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, (No. 30). 1950. 105”x Art Archives, New York. © Copyright MUST be cleared prior to 207”. enamel on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, release! Location :The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Photo Credit : Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/ New York. Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in the American mid-west. Throughout his childhood, his family lived on a succession of "truck" farms in Arizona and southern California. When he was sixteen, Pollock first studied art at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, where he met Philip Guston and Reu- ben Kadish, two friends who later became artists. In 1930, at age eighteen, Pollock moved from Los Angeles to New York City, settling in Greenwich Village. He immediately enrolled at the Art Students League, where he studied drawing and painting for five semesters with the American Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton, who soon became his mentor and friend. From 1942, when he had his first one-person exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim'sArt of This Century gallery in New York, until his death in an automobile crash at age forty-four in 1956, Pollock's volatile art and personality made him a dominant figure in the art world and the press. In 1947–48 he devised a radically new innovation: using pour and drip techniques that relied on a lin- ear structure. He created canvases and works on paper that redefined the categories of painting and draw- ing. Referring to his 1951 exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery, fellow Abstract Expressionist painter Lee Krasner, who was Pollock's wife, noted that his work "seemed like monumental drawing, or maybe painting with the immediacy of drawing — some new category." 52 Chapter 4: Five Post Modern-Isms Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M Jackson Pollock. "Number 27". 1950, 1950. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 49 × 106 in. (124.5 × 269.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 53.12 © 2009 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York To many, the large eloquent canvases of 1950 are Pollock's greatest achievements. "Autumn Rhythm," painted in October of that year, exemplifies the extraordinary balance between accident and control that Pollock maintained over his technique. The words "poured" and "dripped," commonly used to describe his unorthodox creative process, which involved painting on unstretched canvas laid flat on the floor, hardly suggest the diversity of the artist's movements (flicking, splattering, and dribbling) or the lyrical, often spiritual, compositions they produced. POLLOCK MATURE PERIOD | 1947-1956 Subject Matter: Themes: Characteristics: Chapter 4: Five Post Modern-Isms 53 Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M Franz Kline, "Mahoning", 1956. Oil and paper collage on canvas, 80 × 100 in. (203.2 × 254 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art 57.10 © 2009 The Franz Kline Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Franz Kline [1910 – 1962] Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist painters centered around New York. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, attended Girard College, an academy for fatherless boys; attended Boston University; spent summers from 1956-62 painting in Provincetown, Mas- sachusetts, and died in New York City of a rheumatic heart disease. He was married to Elizabeth Vincent Parsons, a British ballet dancer. Kline's best known abstract expressionist paintings are in black and white. Kline re-introduced color into his paintings around 1955, though he used color more consistently after 1959. Kline's paintings are generally dynamic, spontaneous and have dramatic impact, Kline often closely referred to compositional drawings. KLINE"S MATURE "ACTION PAINTING" STYLE OF THE 1950's Subject Matter: Themes: Characteristics: 54 Chapter 4: Five Post Modern-Isms Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M Hans Hofmann, "Rhapsody", 1965, Oil on canvas, H. 84-1/4, W. 60-1/2 inches (214 x 153.7 cm.), Gift of Renate Hofmann, 1975 Accession Number 1975.323, © 2010 Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Hans Hofmann [1880 – 1966] Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter. In 1932 he immigrated to the United States, where he resided until the end of his life. Before moving to the United States he worked with the Bavarian government as assistant to the direc- tor of Public Works. Through this, Hofmann was able to develop his knowledge of mathematics. He even went on to develop and patent devices such as the electromagnetic comptometer, a radar device for ships at sea, a sensitized light bulb, and a portable freezer unit for military use. Even with such great abilities in sci- ence and mathematics, Hofmann started to take great interest in creative studies later in his career he was revered as an influential teacher. HOFMANN'S MATURE PERIOD | 1940-1966 Subject Matter: Themes: Characteristics: Chapter 4: Five Post Modern-Isms 55 Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M Helen Frankenthaler, "Flood", 1967. Synthetic polymer on canvas, 124 × 140 in. (315 × 355.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art 68.12 © 2009 Helen Frankenthaler/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Helen Frankenthaler [1928 - ] Helen Frankenthaler is an abstract expressionist painter that has been a major contributor to the his- tory of postwar American painting. She began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract paint- ing that came to be known as Color Field painters. Born in New York City, she was influenced by Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock's paintings. Frankenthaler has a home and studio in Darien, Connecticut HELEN FRANKENTHALERS MATURE COLOUR FIELD PERIOD | 1950's- Subject Matter: Themes: Characteristics: 56 Chapter 4: Five Post Modern-Isms Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M Louise Nevelson, "Dawn’s Wedding Chapel II", 1959. Painted wood, 115 7/8 × 83 1/2 × 10 1/2 in. (294.3 × 212.1 × 26.7 cm) with base. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation Inc. 70.68a-m © 2009 Estate of Louise Nevelson/Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York Louise Berliawsky Nevelson [born Leah Berliawsky |1899 – 1988] Nevelson was an American artist known for her abstract expressionist “crates” grouped together to form a new creation. She used found objects or everyday discarded things in her “assemblages”, one of which was three stories high. Nevelson studied at the Art Students League in New York City during 1929-30. She later studied with Hans Hofmann in Munich, and worked as an assistant to Diego Rivera. As a part of the Works Progress Administration, Nevelson taught art at the Educational Alliance art school on the Lower East Side of Man- hattan, New York City. LOUISE NEVELSON'S MATURE STYLE | 1960's- Subject Matter: Themes: Characteristics: Chapter 4: Five Post Modern-Isms 57 Module: Art Theory and History for Senior Students Course Code: AVI 4M The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art, style of techniques used but to the attitudes that led to the production of art derived from popu- lar culture. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertis- ing, comic books and mundane cultural objects, WARHOL AND POP ART pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the Pop art was an art movement that emerged in then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism. It the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the is also associated with the artists' use of mechani- United States. Pop art challenged tradition by as- cal means of reproduction or rendering techniques. serting that an artist's use of mass-produced visual *main source for biographies and art movements is images was a part of the fine art tradition. http://en.wikipedia.org/ Self-Portrait Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) 1966. Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987) Self-portrait 1979 Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on nine canvases, Instant color print 61 x 50.8 cm (24 x 20 in.) Purchase, The Each canvas 22 1/2 x 22 1/2" (57.2 x 57.2 cm), overall 67 5/8 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Gift, Joyce and x 67 5/8" (171.7 x 171.7 cm).