Post-war Art in America

After WWII

• “The American Century”– Postwar economic boom– Victory and rebuilding Europe & Japan

• New York as new center of art world– European artists had fled from war & Hitler– Economic center of the world– “How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art”

– Serge Gilbault’s history of Abstract Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism

• AKA The New York School, AbEx, The American School, Action Painting

• 2 main divisions: – Gestural Abstraction (Pollock, de Kooning)– Color-field painting (Newman, Rothko)

• The gendered world of 1950’s painting in New York

• “The Irascibles” in NYC

• Pollock, Male and Female, 1943

Joan Miro, Carnival of Harlequin, 1924

• Pollock, Moon Woman Cuts the Circle, 1943

• Full Fathom Five, 1947

• Closeup of Full Fathom Five

Lavender Mist, 1950

• From Namuth documentary on Autumn Rhythm

Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, 1950

• Side view of a Pollock ptg

• Closeups of Autumn Rhythm

Died. Jackson Pollock, 44, bearded shock trooper of modern painting, who spread his canvases on the floor, dribbled paint, sand and broken glass on them, smeared and scratched them, named them with numbers...; at the wheel of his convertible in a side road crack-up near East Hampton, N.Y.

--Time Magazine August 20, 1956

• Mark Rothko, Untitled,1949

• Mark Rothko, No. 10,1950. Oil on canvas, 229.2 x 146.4 cm (90 1/4 x 57 5/8),

• Mark Rothko, Untitled [Blue, Green, and Brown],1952 (alternatively dated to 1951),

• Mark Rothko, Orange and Tan,1954

• Mark Rothko, Untitled [Seagram Mural],c. 1958

• Rothko Room (7 paintings for the Seagram Building in New York)1958-1959