Abstract Expressionism was an American post-WWII art movement centered in New York City that focused on spontaneous, raw expression and large canvases to depict inner emotions and the subconscious. Key artists included Jackson Pollock, known for his drip paintings; Willem de Kooning who used gestural abstraction; and Mark Rothko whose color field paintings conveyed transcendental experiences through large areas of color without subjects. The movement sought to express universal feelings through new techniques arising from surrealism, abstractionism, and the influences of the Depression and World War II.

1. By: Tori Veltri, Maddy Salo, & Emily
Lundh

2. Definition
• A movement embracing many individual styles
marked in common by freedom of technique,
a preference for dramatically large canvases,
and a desire to give spontaneous
expression to the unconscious.

3. History
• Started in New York in 1940’s
• New York School:
– Artists wanted to express feelings about World
War II
– Main Artists: Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock,
& Mark Rothko
– First U.S. movement to become famous

4. Influences
• Abstractionism & Expressionism
• Surrealism
• Great Depression
• World War Two
• Holocaust

5. Features
• Pieces of art are very large
• Applied paint expressively
• No realistic subject
• Expression of feelings and emotions
• Trying to depict the subconscious mind
• Same attitude about art but not technique or
style
• Expresses universal emotions

6. Types
Action Painting Colorfield Painting
• Not carefully applied • Carefully painted
• Applied paint roughly • Intense squares of color
• Personal expression • Few colors
• Paint is spontaneously • Large fields of flat, solid
dribbled, splashed or color spread across or
smeared onto the canvas stained into the canvas
• Areas of unbroken surface
and a flat picture plane

7. • January 28, 1912, born in Cody, Wyoming
• 1930, moved to New York
• 1935, he started work on the WPA Federal Art
Project as a painter
• 1937, began psychiatric treatment for alcoholism
• 1943, Pollock's first one-man art show in New
York
• 1945, Pollock married Lee Krasner
• 1947, Pollock developed the "dripping" process
• August 11, 1956, died in East Hampton, New York

10. Going West, 1934-1935

11. Blue (Moby Dick) 1943

12. Full Fathom Five 1947

13. Autumn Rhythm 1950

15. Number 14 1951

16. Convergence 1952

17. Willem de Kooning
• 1904- Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Left home at 12 to work at a design &
decorating firm
• Depicted the human form using different
methods
• Work was constantly changing
• At the age of 20 he traveled to America as a
stowaway
• Influenced by Picasso, Cubism, Surrealism,
& Dadaism
• Gestural Abstraction
• Worked on Women Series for 30 years
• Died of Alzheimer's in 1997 at age 92

18. Pink Angels 1945

19. Woman 1 1950-52

20. …Whose Name was Writ in Water
1975

21. Mark Rothko
• Born in Russia, moved to New York
• Started as a surrealist
• Part of the New York School
• Style: Color field paintings
• Avoided subjects
• Transcendental Experience
• Mentally unstable

22. Slow Swirl at the End of the Sea (1943)

23. Orange and
Yellow (1956)

24. Red on Maroon
(1959)

25. Seagram Murals

26. Untitled (1969)

27. Rothko Chapel

28. Louise Nevelson
• Born in 1899 in the Ukraine and moved to
Maine in 1905 with her father
• Gave found objects a “spiritual life” inspired
by feminism
• Grouped wood together into monochromatic
cubist structures

29. Sky Cathedral (1982) by Louise Nevelson