Abstract Expressionism: A History

Manhattan has produced some of the biggest names in modern art; Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko are amongst the most well known, working alongside infamous figures of the literary world like John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara. It seems surreal that all of these game-changing artists were, at one point, walking these streets at the same time, let alone working together in their creative practices, and surreal is exactly what it was. The rise of Abstract Expressionism in New York, a movement spearheaded by the New York School, was influenced directly by the migration of Surrealism from Europe during World War 2, and arguably changed the landscape of Western art in a fundamental way. But we'll get to that. First, what was the New York School? 

Picture a small community of artists, all with different techniques and styles, but fueled by a common understanding of what art should be. That’s what developed in 1943, when a group of artists came together to exhibit their work in a show that would eventually culminate into one of the most transformative approaches to painting in America in the 20th century. The artists of the New York School worked in two primary groups; the action painters and the color field painters. Action painters, like Jackson Pollock, were fueled by the concept of ‘psychic automatism’, or a stream of consciousness style painting. This technique was shared by poets like O’Hara and Ashbery, who often wrote poems that broke stylistic convention in favor of subconscious expression. 

Color field painters, on the other hand, were more intentional. While rooted in the same desire for freedom and spontaneity, their palettes were typically constrained to just a few colors, and their composition consisted of large swaths of paint that blurred into each other. Their work was meditative, reflective, and done with intentional abstraction in the hopes of inspiring the viewer to take time to really look at it. Together, these two groups made up what we know today as Abstract Expressionism. 

The themes motivating these artists weren’t new; they were deeply rooted in European, specifically French Surrealism, a movement coined by Andre Breton in 1924. When the effects of World War 2 began to spread across Europe, Surrealists fled to America, where practicing artists were inspired by their tendency towards creating from the unconscious mind. And at a time in the United States when censorship was on the rise and the rest of the American art world  was praising realism and high-quality technique, it was more than a creative exploration; it was a political statement.  

The movement of Abstract Expressionism marked a shift back towards art as an emotive medium, and away from the structured narrative of art being pushed in society. It readdressed the fundamental question, what is art, in the controversy it caused, and it rebelled against the constraints being placed on the freedom of expression during the Cold War. 

Overall, it served as an essential reminder to artists and audiences alike; that the nature of art is subject to what our societies are in need of. In the case of Abstract Expressionism, that was a mouthpiece loud enough to cut through both convention and suppression. And still art continues to adapt in the face of a rapidly changing society, and it remains the job of the artists today to decide what role it will play. 

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