Reading Abstract Expressionism

Richard Pipes

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Year: 1991
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780300185720
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Abstract Expressionism is arguably the most important art movement in postwar America. Many of its creators and critics became celebrities, participating in heated public debates that were published in newspapers, magazines, and exhibition catalogues. This up-to-date anthology is the first comprehensive collection of key critical writings about Abstract Expressionism from its inception in the 1940s to the present day. Ellen G. Landau's masterful introduction presents and analyzes the major arguments and crucial points of view that have surrounded the movement decade by decade. She then offers a selection of readings, also organized by decade, including influential statements by such artists as Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman as well as the commentary of diverse critics. Offering new insights into the development of Abstract Expressionism, this rich anthology also demonstrates the ongoing impact of this revolutionary and controversial movement. Reading Abstract Expressionism is essential for the library of any curator, scholar, or student of twentieth-century art.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Abstract Expressionism: Changing Methodologies for Interpreting Meaning
• The 1940s: Mythologizing the Movement
• Excerpt from Letter to His Sister Vartoosh, 1942
• Excerpt from "Art in New York"
• Excerpts from "The Modern Painter's World"
• A Questionnaire
• Thesis, 1946
• Application for a Guggenheim Fellowship
• The Ideographic Picture
• The Sublime Is Now
• My Painting
• The Romantics Were Prompted
• Excerpts from System and Dialectics of Art
• Excerpt from "The Realm of Art: A New Platform; 'Globalism' Pops into View"
• Excerpt from "Whither Goes Abstract and Surrealist Art?"
• A Problem for Critics
• Editorial Preface
• The Intrasubjectives
• The 1950s ESTABLISHING AUTHORITY
• Excerpts from Artists'Sessions at Studio 35
• David Smith Makes a Sculpture
• Statement
• de Kooning Paints a Picture
• Artist's Statement
• The Legacy of Jackson Pollock
• In the Galleries: Franz Kline
• The American Action Painters
• "American-Type" Painting
• Excerpt from "The Liberating Quality of Avant-Garde Art"
• International Reaction to Alfred H. Barr Jr., 'The New American Painting"
• The 1960s: Consolidating the Canon
• The Unwanted Title: Abstract Expressionism
• We Interview Lee Krasner
• The Abstract Sublime
• Excerpt from American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists
• The Biomorphic '40s
• Jackson Pollock
• Concerning the Beginnings of the New York School, 1939-1943: An Interview with Peter Busa and Matta, Conducted in Minneapolis in December 1966
• Concerning the Beginnings of the New York School, 1939-1943: An Interview with Robert Motherwell Conducted in New York in January 1967
• The 1970s EMERGING CONTEXTS AND CLOSER READINGS
• Jungian Aspects of Jackson Pollock's Imagery
• Residual Sign Systems in Abstract Expressionism
• Robert Motherwell's Elegies to the Spanish Republic
• Excerpt from "Abstract Expressionism: The Politics of Apolitical Painting," Parts
• Graham, Gorky, de Kooning and the "Ingres Revival" in America
• Symbolic Pregnance in Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still
• The 1980s READING NEW SIGNIFICATIONS
• The New Adventures of the Avant-Garde in America: Greenberg, Pollock, or from Trotskyism to the New Liberalism of the "Vital Center"
• James Joyce and the First Generation New York School
• The Market for Abstract Expressionism: The Time Lag Between Critical and Commercial Acceptance
• The Impact of Nietzsche and Northwest Coast Indian Art on Barnett Newman's Idea of Redemption in the Abstract Sublime
• The Rhetoric of Abstract Expressionism
• The 1990s RE(DE)FINING ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
• Martha Graham and Abstract Expressionism
• "Introduction," "AbstractExpressionism and Afro-American Marginalisation," and "Dissent During the McCarthy Period"
• Modern Man Discourse and the New York School
• In Defense of Abstract Expressionism
• Reconsidering the Stain: On Gender, Identity, and New York School Painting
• "Of the Earth, the Damned, and of the Recreated": Aspects of Clyfford Still's Earlier Work
• Excerpt from "Water and Lipstick: De Kooning in Transition"
• Barnett Newman' s Stripe Paintings and Kabbalah : A Jewish Take
• Arcadian Nightmares: The Evolution of David Smith and Dorothy Dehner's Work at Bolton Landing
• The Crisis of the Easel Picture
• Selected Bibliography
• Index