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“The Irascibles” (Abstract Expressionists), Life Magazine cover story, 1951

American Abstract Expressionism: Two modes: gestural abstraction (Action Painting) and chromatic abstraction (also called “Sublime” or “Color Field” painting). “The Irascibles” (Abstract Expressionists), Life Magazine cover story, 1951.

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“The Irascibles” (Abstract Expressionists), Life Magazine cover story, 1951

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  1. American Abstract Expressionism:Two modes:gestural abstraction (Action Painting)and chromatic abstraction (also called “Sublime” or “Color Field” painting)

  2. “The Irascibles” (Abstract Expressionists), Life Magazine cover story, 1951 Theodoros Stamos, Jimmy Ernst, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne

  3. Post WW II: New York becomes the capital of the art world(left) Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) painting, 1950 (right) Willem de Kooning (1904–97) painting Woman I, 1951“Action Painting”

  4. Willem de Kooning, Orestes, 1947compare (right) Arshile Gorky, biomorphic surrealist cubism, 1936-7

  5. Willem de Kooning making an early study for Woman I, c.1950-1951(right) Woman I, 1950-2

  6. Willem de Kooning (American, born The Netherlands, 1904–1997) (left) Woman, 1944, oil and charcoal on canvas, 46 x 32 in.(right) De Kooning, The Painter, 1940

  7. (left) Willem de Kooning, Pink Angels, c. 1945, oil and charcoal on canvas(right) Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus, 1618

  8. Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-2Venus of Willendorf, limestone, painted with ochre, 4 3/4 inches, ca. 25,000 years old

  9. De Kooning, Gotham News, 1955 “Action Painting” – Abstract Expressionism

  10. De Kooning, Gotham News, 1955, with detail of upper rightAction Painting

  11. De Kooning in studio, Springs, NY, 1960s

  12. Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956) painting in Springs NY studio, 1950Action Painting – American Abstract Expressionism“I believe the easel picture to be a dying form.” (Guggenheim Application, 1947) James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause 8 August 1949 issue of Life magazine: first artist to become a media celebrity

  13. Lee Krasner (American, 1908 -1984) in New York studio, mid-1930sBlue Painting, 1946, oil on canvas, 28 x 36” Met Pollock in 1942; married him in 1945.

  14. Pollock, Going West, 1934-35 ; compare: Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934, Oil/tempera/canvas

  15. (left) Pollock, Flame, 1934, and (below left) Naked Man with a Knife, 1938, o/c, 50 x 36” Compare (right) David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican, 1896–1975), Collective Suicide, 1935, enamel on wood with applied sections, 49" x 6‘ (“Il Duco”)

  16. Pollock, Pasiphae, 1943; compare André Masson, Pasiphae, 1943Surrealism (subjective mythos and automatism) and Jungian psychoanalysis: the collective unconscious

  17. Pollock, Guardians of the Secret, 1943, SFMoMA

  18. Pollock, Mural, 19'10" x 8‘1“, 1943, for Peggy Guggenheim

  19. Jackson Pollock, Full Fathom Five, 1947, oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key, coins, cigarettes, matches, etc., 50 7/8 x 30 1/8,“ MoMA. Partly poured and partly conventionally-painted abstraction.

  20. Hans Namuth, photographs and film stills of Pollock Painting, 1951

  21. Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist),1950, oil, enamel, and aluminum on canvas, 7 ft 3 in x 9 ft 10 in, National Gallery of Art

  22. Navajo sand painting, a spiritual / healing practice; compare to “Action Painting”: the automatist, performance methods of Jackson Pollock “I feel nearer, more part of the painting. . . . This is akin to the method of Indian sand painters of the West" - Pollock

  23. American Abstract ExpressionistChromatic ExpressionismPainters of the Sublime Barnett Newman & Mark Rothko

  24. Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774 -1840), Monk by the Seashore, 1909-10, German Romantic Sublime

  25. Frederick Edwin Church (American, 1826 -1900) Rainy Season in the Tropics, 1866US Transcendentalism, Hudson River School

  26. Barnett Newman (1905-1970), Pagan Void, Oil on canvas, 33 x 38”, 1946. Artist destroys all previous works. “The Ideographic Picture”

  27. Barnett Newman, Onement I (1948), 27 1/4 inches by 16 1/4 inches, oil on canvas and oil on masking tape on canvas; (right) Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, oil on canvas, 79,5 x 79,5 cm.

  28. Barnett Newman Vir Heroicus Sublimus (Man, Heroic, Sublime) 1950-51, o/c, 8 x 18 ft“We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European painting.”

  29. Barnett Newman and an unidentified viewer with Cathedra in Newman's studio, 1958.

  30. Newman, Broken Obelisk, 1971, Rothko Chapel, Houston; designed by Philip Johnson

  31. Mark Rothko (American b. Marcus Rothkowitz, Lithuania 1903 -1970)(left) Self-Portrait, o/c, 32/25”, 1936; (right) Entrance to Subway [Subway Scene], o/c,1938 "Art Must be Tragic and Timeless"

  32. Surrealism and mythRothko, Omen of the Eagle, 1942 In a 1943 letter to the New York Times co-written with Barnett Newman, Rothko wrote:“It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints, as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing. We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess a spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art."

  33. Biomorphic Surrealism and automatism"It was with the utmost reluctance that I found the figure could not serve my purposes....But a time came when none of us could use the figure without mutilating it.“Rothko, (left) Sea Fantasy, 1946; (right) Untitled, 1944/1945

  34. Rothko, (left) Number 7, 1947-48; (right) No. 17/No. 15 [Multiform],1949

  35. Rothko, Untitled,1949, National Gallery of Art

  36. Rothko, Untitled [Blue, Green, and Brown],1952; Rothko in West 53rd Street Studio 1952"The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them."

  37. Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960, o/c, 9.48 x 9.70 ft, SFMoMA

  38. Rothko Chapel suite of paintings, 1965-66, De Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, 1970 “I wanted to paint both the finite and the infinite…. I was always looking for something more.” - Mark Rothko

  39. David Smith (American, 1906 -1965)Smith at “Terminal Iron Works, Boiler-Tube Makers and Ship-Deck.” (Brooklyn NYC), iron-welding workshop used as Smith’s studio between 1933-1940

  40. David Smith, series of 15 bronze medals inspired by Nazi war medals he had seen in Europe. (top left) Untitled Study, 1939, pencil on paper, 11 in.(top center) Medal for Dishonor: Private Law and Order Leagues, 1939(right below) Bombing Civilians, 1939, cast bronze, 10 3/4 in. S

  41. Exhibition Catalogue: "Medals for Dishonor by David Smith"Willard Gallery, New York, November 1940. cover and page, text and design by Smith

  42. Smith, (left) Jurassic Bird, painted steel, 1945(right top) Specter of Profit, 1946 steel and stainless steelwith (right below) Smith’s notebook sketches from the Museum of Natural History

  43. Smith, Australia, 1951, painted steel, 6' 7 x 8'12" x 16" (on cinder block base) “Drawing in space” (right) Julio Gonzalez (Spanish, 1876-1942), Woman Combing Her Hair, 1932; (below center) Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), Head of a Woman, 1933

  44. David Smith, "drawing in space“ welding, construction, assemblage process Surrealist & Action Painting automatism, spontaneity(right) Compare Picasso studio, 1912 with constructed guitar (first constructed sculpture)

  45. Compare David Smith with RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVIST sculptors(left) Third Obmokhu (student)exhibition, Moscow, 1920Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third International, model completed in 1920 Smith, Voltri XVII, 1962 95 in. H

  46. Smith, Hudson River Landscape, detail and two views, 1951“Drawing in Space” (2-D perception?)

  47. Smith, Tanktotems, 1951-2; (center top) Picasso, Bull’s Head, 1943; (center below) photo of tank tops c.1951) – anthropomorphism, found materials assemblage welding

  48. Smith, Zig IV, painted steel, 1963

  49. Voltri series, 1962, 27 welded sculptures in 30 days

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