Action painting
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| Action painting | |
|---|---|
| Name | Action painting |
| Caption | Jackson Pollock's "Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)" |
| Period | Mid-20th century |
| Location | New York City |
| Notable artists | Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Lee Krasner |
| Movement | Abstract Expressionism |
Action painting is a mid-20th-century style of non-representational painting associated with energetic gesture, improvisation, and emphasis on the physical act of painting itself. Prominent in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s, it became linked to key figures and institutions of Abstract Expressionism and reshaped debates in modern art and museum practice. Critics and curators debated its relation to performance, psychoanalysis, and postwar cultural politics.
Definition and characteristics
Action painting prioritizes the painter's gesture, movement, and bodily engagement over representational content, featuring dripping, flinging, and sweeping marks that record physical motion. Practitioners often worked on unstretched canvases placed on the floor, producing rhythmic webs, splatters, and dynamic calligraphic strokes associated with artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline. Critics like Harold Rosenberg contrasted action-oriented works with object-oriented criticism found in writings by Clement Greenberg and exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. The approach intersects with performance contexts exemplified by events at the Betty Parsons Gallery, the Stable Gallery, and the Sidney Janis Gallery.
Historical origins and influences
Action painting emerged from transatlantic exchanges involving émigré communities, earlier avant-gardes, and wartime cultural shifts. Influences include gestural marks traced to Wassily Kandinsky, the automatic techniques of Surrealist artists like André Masson and Max Ernst, and the calligraphic freedom associated with Chinese painting traditions and ink work by Zeng Fanzhi-era practitioners. The movement developed in the milieu of postwar New York School gatherings, influenced by critics and collectors such as Alfred Barr, Peggy Guggenheim, and Herbert Read. Exhibitions like ""America Today"" and initiatives at the Artists' Club fostered dialogues connecting artists to European émigrés including Hans Hofmann and institutions like the Art Students League of New York.
Key artists and works
Key practitioners include Jackson Pollock ("Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)"), Willem de Kooning (""Woman"" series), Franz Kline (black-and-white canvases), Mark Rothko (early color-field transition works), Arshile Gorky (surreal-gesture canvases), and Lee Krasner (collaged compositions). Lesser-known but significant contributors include Philip Guston (prefiguration of figurative turn), Hans Hofmann (push/pull theory), Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Philip Pavia, James Brooks, Grace Hartigan, Theodoros Stamos, John Ferren, Norman Bluhm, Emil Schumacher, Perle Fine, Ibram Lassaw, Helen Frankenthaler, Allan Kaprow, Karel Appel, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Sam Francis, Yves Klein, Pierre Soulages, Constantin Brâncuși, Max Ernst, Roberto Matta, David Smith, Isamu Noguchi, Ad Reinhardt, Milton Resnick, Willem Baziotes, Ilya Bolotowsky, Jacob Lawrence, Ben Nicholson, Giorgio Morandi, Arman, Antoni Tàpies, Victor Pasmore, Tassos Denegris, R.B. Kitaj, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Burri, Eduardo Chillida, Josef Albers, Lucio Fontana.
Techniques and materials
Practitioners used industrial paints, house paints, enamels, oil, and alkyds applied with brushes, sticks, trowels, knives, syringes, and directly from cans to produce drips and splatters. Canvases were often unstretched and laid on the floor, enabling 360-degree access as in the studios of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Pigments and grounds were chosen for viscosity and flow; supports included canvas, paper mounted on board, Masonite, and wood panels used in works collected by institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Tate Modern. Conservation challenges prompted research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art conservation labs and collaborations with material scientists at universities like Columbia University and New York University.
Critical reception and legacy
Contemporary critics split between celebratory accounts from Harold Rosenberg and formalist critiques from Clement Greenberg, while historians traced ideological readings through Cold War cultural diplomacy involving organizations like the United States Information Agency and patrons such as Nelson Rockefeller. Reception included institutional embrace by the Museum of Modern Art and critical pushback in papers like The New York Times and journals such as ARTnews and Artforum. The legacy influenced subsequent movements including Minimalism, Color Field painting, Neo-Expressionism, and performance-based art practices linked to artists exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Centre Pompidou. Debates over gender and authorship engaged scholars at Smithsonian American Art Museum and universities including Yale University and Princeton University.
Exhibitions and collections
Seminal exhibitions that showcased action-oriented work included ""8 Americans"" and shows organized at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim Museum. Retrospectives and group shows have appeared at institutions such as the Tate Modern, the National Gallery of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Fondation Beyeler, and the Centre Pompidou. Major collections holding action painting works include the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Modern, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum, and the Kunstmuseum Basel.