Franz Kline was an American abstract expressionist painter known for his black and white paintings influenced by Japanese calligraphy. He began his career painting American scenes but transitioned to abstraction by projecting drawings onto walls. Robert Motherwell was also an abstract expressionist who created a series called "Elegies to the Spanish Republic" in response to the Spanish Civil War using black and white shapes and colors inspired by Picasso's Guernica. Clyfford Still painted large-scale abstract works in earth tones that evoked geological phenomena and the sublime landscapes of the Hudson River School.

1. More
Abstract
Expressionists

2. Franz
Kline
(1910-­‐1962)
Born
in
Willkes
Barre
PA
Heavily
industrialized
coal
mining
district
Fritz
Goro,
Franz
Kline,
1954
Life.com

3. Franz
Kline
(1910-­‐1962)
1930s
painKng
“American
Scene”
pictures
Franz
Kline,
Palmerton
Pennsylvania,
1941
Smithsonian
American
Art
Museum

4. Franz
Kline
(1910-­‐1962)
Arrived
at
abstracKon
by
using
an
enlarger
to
project
drawings
on
the
wall
Franz
Kline,
The
Chair,
1950
Walker
Art
Center

5. Franz
Kline,
Chief,
1950
Museum
of
Modern
Art
Franz
Kline,
New
York,
New
York,
1950
Albright
Knox
Gallery

6. Franz
Kline
(1910-­‐1962)
Influenced
by
Japanese
calligraphy
Franz
Kline,
Un9tled
II,
1952
Museum
of
Modern
Art

7. Franz
Kline
(1910-­‐1962)
Large
scale
Fritz
Goro,
Franz
Kline
in
his
studio
with
his
black
and
white
painKngs,
1954
Life.com

8. Franz
Kline,
Pain9ng
Number
2,
1954
Museum
of
Modern
Art

9. Franz
Kline,
Delaware
Gap,
1958
Hirshhorn
Museum

10. Franz
Kline,
Un9tled,
1957
Hirshhorn
Museum

11. Robert
Motherwell
(1915-­‐1991)
Studied
philosophy
and
art
history
Robert
Motherwell
in
his
14th
Street
Studio,
1943
Image
source:
h[p://www.flickr.com/photos/51035595873@N01/168675291

12. Robert
Motherwell
(1915-­‐1991)
1949
began
series
of
“Elegies
to
the
Spanish
Republic”
in
response
to
the
Spanish
Civil
War
“For
those
of
my
generaKon
(I
was
26
in
1936),
this
war
was
an
event
which
emoKonally
engaged
each
of
us.
It
was
a
test
of
all
humanisKc
values,
whether
Spain
was
to
enter
the
twenKeth
century
or
to
be
supressed.”
Robert
Motherwell
Robert
Motherwell,
Elegy
to
the
Spanish
Republic,
1953
Albright
Knox
Museum

13. Robert
Motherwell
(1915-­‐1991)
Scale
and
color
scheme
recall
Picasso’s
Guernica
Pablo
Picasso,
Guernica,
1936
Robert
Motherwell,
Elegy
to
the
Spanish
Republic,
1957-­‐61
In
the
Museum
of
Modern
Art

14. Robert
Motherwell
(1915-­‐1991)
Universal
language:
Black
and
white
=
“being
and
non-­‐being,
life
and
death"
“I
discovered
Black
as
one
of
my
subjects
-­‐
and
with
black,
the
contrasKng
white,
a
sense
of
life
and
death”
Robert
Motherwell
Robert
Motherwell,
Elegy
to
the
Spanish
Republic,
1957-­‐61
Museum
of
Modern
Art

15. Robert
Motherwell
(1915-­‐1991)
“I
take
an
elegy
to
be
a
funeral
lamentaKon
or
funeral
song
for
something
one
cared
about
.
.
.
But
the
pictures
are
also
general
metaphors
of
the
contrast
between
life
and
death,
and
their
interrelaKon.”
Robert
Motherwell
“I
think
of
my
pictures
as
dramas;
the
shape
of
the
pictures
are
the
performers”
Mark
Rothko
Robert
Motherwell,
Elegy
to
the
Spanish
Republic,
108,
1965-­‐67
Museum
of
Modern
Art

16. Robert
Motherwell
(1915-­‐1991)
“The
‘Elegies’
correspond
to
something
deep
in
my
character
.
.
.
I
seem
to
have
found
in
them
a
certain
archetypal
form,
in
the
Jungian
sense.
A
lot
of
people
who
know
nothing
about
modern
art
have
been
touched
by
the
‘Elegies,’
as
one
can
be
touched
by
Stonehenge
or
any
other
symbolic
manifestaKon
of
the
depths
of
the
human
spirit,
without
being
an
art
criKc.
Robert
Motherwell
Robert
Motherwell,
Elegy
to
the
Spanish
Republic,
70,
1961
Metropolitan
Museum

17. Clyfford
S@ll
(1904-­‐1980)
Born
in
North
Dakota;
spent
most
of
his
career
in
Washington
State
“These
are
not
painKngs
in
the
usual
sense.
They
are
life
and
death
merging
in
a
fearful
union”
Clyfford
SKll
Image
source:
h[p://www.rogue.ph/blogs/entry/sKll_amazing/

18. Clyfford
S@ll
(1904-­‐1980)
Large
scale
painKngs
evoke
geological
phenomenon
Lava
flows,
the
beginning
or
end
of
Kme

19. Clyfford
SKll,
Un9tled,
1958
Art
InsKtute
of
Chicago

20. Clyfford
SKll
1948-­‐C,
1948
Hirshhorn
Museum

21. Clyfford
SKll
1950-­‐A
No.
2,
1950
Hirshhorn
Museum

22. Clyfford
S@ll
(1904-­‐1980)
SKll’s
work
is
omen
likened
to
the
romanKc
vision
of
the
Hudson
River
School
Their
pictures
expressed
awe
before
the
sublime
landscape
of
the
American
west
Albert
Bierstadt,
Among
the
Sierra
Nevada
Mountains,
California,
1868
NaKonal
Museum
of
American
Art

23. Clyfford
S@ll
(1904-­‐1980)
“The
tradiKon
to
which
SKll's
work
is
related
is
heroic
landscape
.
.
.
But
to
read
it
directly
as
landscape
violates
its
meaning.
The
cliffs
and
ravines
of
color,
the
jagged
rims
of
blue
or
vermilion
breaking
through
a
matrix
of
dense
enveloping
black,
are
no
metaphors
of
the
Grand
Canyon
or
the
Rockies
.
.
.
They
are
meant
to
convey
a
sense
of
pantheisKc
energy,
of
intense
mood
and
vigorously
arKculated
feeling—to
subsKtute,
in
fact,
for
nature
it
self.”
Robert
Hughes,
“ The
Tempest
in
the
Paint
Pot,”
Time
Magazine,
Nov
26,
1979
h[p://www.Kme.com/Kme/magazine/arKcle/
0,9171,946425-­‐2,00.html
Clyfford
SKll
1960
Hirshhorn
Museum

24. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Born
and
raised
in
the
midwest
Worked
as
a
welder
in
an
Indiana
car
factory
Irving
Penn,
David
Smith,
Bolton
Landing,
Lake
George,
New
York,
1964
NaKonal
Gallery
of
Art
Image
source:
h[p://oseculoprodigioso.blogspot.com/2006/01/penn-­‐irving-­‐fotografia.html

25. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Early
work
influenced
by
Miro,
Calder,
Picasso,
and
Julio
Gonazalez
David
Smith,
Home
of
the
Welder,
1945
Tate
Gallery

26. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Spectre
series
visualized
evil
as
a
primordial
bird
of
prey
wreaking
havoc
and
destrucKon
David
Smith,
Study
for
Spectre
Riding
a
Headless
Horse,
1951-­‐52
Hirshorn

27. David
Smith,
Jurassic
Bird,
1945
David
Smith,
False
Peace
Spectre,
1945

28. David
Smith,
Jurassic
Bird.
1945
h[p://www.davidsmithestate.org/bio_files/jurassic_bird.html

29. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
1945
moved
to
Bolton
Landing
with
Dorothy
Dehner
Dan
Budnick,
David
Smith
at
Bolton
Landing,
1962
Image
source:
h[p://www.davidsmithestate.org/index.html

30. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Hudson
River
Landscape
is
first
experiment
with
“automaKsm”
David
Smith,
Hudson
River
Landscape,
1951
Whitney
Museum

31. “Smith
said
that
it
was
inspired
by
a
train
journey
from
Albany
to
Poughkeepsie.
It
was
a
route
he
must
have
travelled
hundreds
of
Kmes,
as
it
leads
from
his
home
and
studio
at
Bolton
Landing
along
the
220
miles
south
to
New
York
City.
“Is
Hudson
River
Landscape
the
Hudson
River,”
he
wrote,
“or
is
it
the
travel,
the
vision;
or
does
it
ma[er?
The
sculpture
exists
on
its
own,
it
is
an
enKty…
I
want
you
to
travel,
by
percepKon,
the
path
I
travelled
in
creaKng
it.””
h[p://www.aworldtowin.net/reviews/DavidSmith.html
David
Smith,
Hudson
River
Landscape,
1951
Whitney
Museum

32. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Tanktotem
and
SenKnel
series
–
primiKve
personages
David
Smith,
Tanktotem
III,
1953

33. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Smith’s
totemic
figures
are
like
personages,
asserKng
their
presence
in
the
void
Photograph
of
sculptures
at
Bolton
Landing
Image
source:
h[p://www.davidsmithestate.org/bio_files/sculpture_group1955.html

34. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
“It
was
the
soar
of
the
human
figure
that
held
him,
the
uncompromising
thrust
it
makes,
the
fight
it
carries
on
with
the
force
of
gravity”
Clement
Greenberg
Photograph
of
sculptures
at
Bolton
Landing
Image
source:
h[p://www.davidsmithestate.org/bio_files/sculpture_group1955.html

35. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
The
Cubi
series
consists
of
28
monumental
stainless
steel
sculptures
that
Smith
worked
on
from
1961
unKl
his
death
in
a
car
accident
in
1965
David
Smith,
Cubi
XVII,
1963
Dallas
Museum

36. David
Smith
(1906-­‐1965)
Like
the
Tanktotems
and
Sen9nels,
they
suggest
human
personages
But
they
have
become
more
geometric,
architectural,
and
heroic
David
Smith,
Cubi
XIX,
1964
Tate
Gallery