Post Painterly Abstraction Artists

It blended elements of surrealism and abstract art in an effort to create a new style fitted to the postwar mood of anxiety and trauma.

Post painterly abstraction artists. Included in the show were many of the artists who had participated in post painterly abstraction in los angeles the previous year. The movement embraced the gestural abstraction of willem de kooning and jackson pollock and the color field painting of mark rothko and others. She championed individuality and experimentation. They included morris louis kenneth noland howard mehring gene davis and thomas downing.

The heritage of painters like van gogh cezanne gauguin and seurat was essential for the development of modern art. However the definition of post painterly abstraction is limited in conveying the very wide range of activities that its artists pursue. Post painterly abstraction art movement post painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic clement greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the los angeles county museum of art in 1964 which subsequently travelled to the walker art center and the art gallery of toronto. Post painterly abstraction is a blanket term covering a range of new developments in abstract painting in the late 1950s and early 1960s characterised by a more rigorous approach to abstraction.

Post painterly abstraction encompasses a broad group of american painters who reacted to abstract expressionism either through the pursuit of hard edge abstraction or by creating open compositions of washes and poured areas of color. It grew very directly out of the existing traditions of abstract art synthesising elements from jackson pollock mark rothko and barnett newman as well as looking to ad reinhardt and ellsworth kelly to. The 31 artists in the exhibition included walter darby bannard jack bush gene davis thomas downing friedel dzubas paul feeley john ferren sam francis helen frankenthaler sam gilliam al held ellsworth kelly nicholas krushenick alexander liberman morris louis arthur fortescue mckay howard mehring kenneth noland jules olitski ray parker david simpson albert stadler frank stella mason wells emerson woelffer and a number of other american and canadian artists who were. Post painterly abstraction c1955 65 the phrase post painterly abstraction was first used in 1964 by the art critic clement greenberg 1909 94 as the title for an exhibition of 20th century paintings he curated for the los angeles county museum of art.

The show featuring abstract art by contemporary american and canadian artists all second generation exponents of abstract expressionism subsequently travelled to the walker art centre minneapolis and the art museum of toronto now. Post painterly abstraction is a style that favors openness risk taking and clarity as opposed to the dense painterly surfaces that are apparent in abstract expressionism. Helen frankenthaler was an immeasurably influential american abstract artist known for among other things kick starting post painterly abstraction. Post impressionism as practiced by paul gauguin georges seurat vincent van gogh and paul cezanne had an enormous impact on 20th century art and led to the advent of 20th century abstraction.