American Abstract Expressionism: Gesture and Color

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the historical context, key institutions, influential critics, and fundamental artists of the American Abstract Expressionist movement.

Abstract Expressionism

A North American art movement characterized by plastic intensity, immediate painting, and the concept of the canvas as an event.

Works Project Administration (WPA)

A governmental work program in the United States during the $1930s$ and early $1940s$ reflecting an interventionist stance that supported the arts.

Federal Art Project (FAP)

A specific United States government project dedicated to visual arts during the era of state interventionism.

American Abstract Artists (AAA)

A group founded in $1936$ to promote and provide opportunities for abstract painting and sculpture.

The Ten

An artistic group that included notable members such as Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

A prominent art institution in New York founded in $1929$.

Museum of Non-Objective Painting

The original name of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, founded in $1937$.

Clement Greenberg

An influential art critic ($1909-1994$) who wrote the seminal text "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" in $1939$.

Harold Rosenberg

An art critic ($1906-1978$) known for "The Tradition of the New" ($1959$) and his theory surrounding action painting.

Hilton Kramer

A critic ($1928-2012$) mentioned in the context of analyzing the American Abstract Expressionist movement.

Surrealism imprint

One of the three fundamental pillars of Abstract Expressionism, characterized by the importance of psychoanalysis (Freud and Jung) and anthropology.

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

A scholar associated with the development of anthropology and ethnology whose work influenced the creators of the New York School.

Indian Art of the United States

A MoMA exhibition in $1941$ by Frederic H. Douglas and René d’Harnoncourt that impacted the primitive and abstract roots of American art.

Roberto Matta

A Chilean surrealist artist ($1911-2002$) who significantly influenced the development of early American Abstract Expressionism.

Arshile Gorky

An artist ($1905-1948$) associated with the imprint of Surrealism on the New York School.

William Baziotes

A painter ($1912-1961$) who created the work "Toy" ($1949$), demonstrating the intersection of Surrealism and color-field exploration.

WWII Consequences

Factors including the content crisis, US isolation, rejection of the European vanguard, and the transfer of European artists to the United States.