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Although not as well known as some of the New York School artist, Still was the first to break through to a new and wholly abstract style devoid of obvious subject matter. His mature pictures have great fields of colour to evoke dramatic emotions between man and nature taking place on a huge scale. A believer in art's moral value in a disorienting modern world, Still would go on to influence a second generation of Colour Field painters.

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As World War II was mounting, Kandinsky returned to Moscow. During these years, Kandinsky alternated between abstraction, Impressionism, and romantic fantasies. His abstract geometric paintings became more simplistic and separate in shape. The Avant garde trend of Moscow at the time was the main influence.

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Book Scan

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Riverbed, 1959

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Created in the wake of her husband, Jackson Pollock's death.
The thick lines that dominate the centre can be interpreted as trees, with thick knotted roots at their base. Krasner‘s work was eclipsed by Pollock’s his rise to fame and Gothic Landscape was made in the years following his death from a car crash in 1956. It was one of a series of large canvases whose violent and expressive brushstrokes reflected her feelings of grief after the tragedy.

It was probably this that led Krasner to call the painting Gothic Landscape, several years after completing it.

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Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939): A Summary

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Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939): A Summary

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In the 1930s, Spain was a deeply divided country that was politically torn between right-wing Nationalist and left-wing Republican parties. The Nationalist party was made up of monarchists, landowners, employers, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Republicans consisted of the workers, the trade unions, socialists and peasants.

Economically, the country had been deeply hit by the Great Depression after the Wall Street Crash. Partly due to this turmoil, in 1929 the military dictatorship that had ruled Spain since 1923 collapsed.

There followed a period where the two political rivals had periods in power as the elected government. The country was so divided and unstable that in 1936 the army rebelled and forcibly removed the Republicans from power.

Pablo Picasso - Guernica, 1937

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Newman's intention for this painting was for the audience to look at it from a close vantage point as if they were surrounded by the colours they were viewing, that is why, at the time, it was his biggest painting. Mel Bochner discovered in the sixties that the bright red on the canvas reflected onto the view making it seem like they were drenched in the painting and therefore also become a part of the art which made the experience much more profound.

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PH-401, 1957

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This painting is one of over a hundred which stemmed from Motherwell's moral issue with the Spanish Civil war that took place from 1936 to 1939. Theses series of images began life as a small drawing made by Motherwell accompanied by a poem written by Harold Rosenburg made in 1948 evolved into countless canvases exploring this event.

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After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world's strongest nations. They were called superpowers. They had different ideas about economics and government. They fought a war of ideas called the Cold War.

Erro - American Interiors #1, 1968

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Azalea Garden,  1956

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De Kooning worked on this picture for two years, constantly revising it, and aggressively so. His dealer had noticed that the canvases often had holes punctured through from his violent brush strokes. Women I embodies two major themes within de Kooning's work. The female figure in the painting is unlike any other seen in paintings of his time, she is portrayed as highly aggressive, erotic and almost threatening. She did not fit the sterotype of a post Cold War housewife which De Kooning deliberately created as a response to the idealized women in art history.

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Pollock struggled with alcoholism throughout his life. Especially during the 50s, his paintings were not selling so he began painting in black and white due to being hunted by depression. No.31 was painted onto a huge canvas with holes in the bottom of paint cans, squeezed paint from a tube, and even used a turkey baster or stiff brush. In Pollock's own words,"When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing" this therefore the dark tones of the splatters suggest that he is subconsciously painting about the troubles in his life.

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Gothic Landscape, 1961

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Vir Heroicus Sublimis,

1950-51

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Elegy to the Spanish Republic,1954

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Unbroken Line, 1923

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Woman I, 1950-52

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One: Number 31, 1950

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Starting in the 1940’s abstract expressionism is a modern art movement which centered in New York. Increasing in popularity after the Second World War, this movement was a primary focus in the art world until the introduction of Pop Art during the 1960’s also making New York triumph over Paris as the centre of the art world.

The objective of the creations was to evoke emotion within the audience while still being abstract. The quality of paintings were what mattered most to the artist, it was natural, raw, impulsive and was inspired by the idea that art could come from the subconscious mind.

Contained within this movement were two major groups; the painters who used dramatic brush strokes, known as action painters. And those who covered the canvas with abstract shapes and different colours.

Artists who were contained in the first grouping such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning worked with spontaneous strokes of the brush and mostly improvised while producing a painting. Pollock, for example, was famously known to walk across his huge canvases pouring a can full of paint along or using a brush to create the splatter effect which we all have come to know and associate only with Pollock’s work. This is the way in which action painters place their spur of the moment feelings and inclinations onto the canvas.

Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still are placed in the second group. They were fascinated by religion and myth which corresponded onto their art that aimed to produce a meditational and pensive response in the audience. Mark Rothko, for instance, used a field of colours and shapes to express the concerns of his time. Death was a key topic through out his art pieces an example of this is "Untitled (Black on Grey)".  Completed in 1970 when Rothko's own health was deteriorating both physically as well as mentally. The darkness of this painting was a contrast to his other much brighter pieces, underlining the changing moods of Mark Rothko.

This specific approach to painting developed from roughly 1960 became known as colour field painting, characterized by artists (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman) using large areas of mostly single flat colours.