Willem de Kooning

Abstract Expressionism was an American art movement in New York City from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s, and was the first specifically American Art movement to establish worldwide influence. It demonstrated the energy and creativity of America in the post-World War II years, and was the first important school in American painting to establish its own aesthetic ideals of beauty, independent of European influence.

The act of painting was regarded as more significant than the finished products, as painters sought to express their subconscious through art.

Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko were among the most celebrated Abstract Expressionists, though their work varied greatly.

‘Unknown”

Jackson Pollock

“Woman and bicycle”Willem de Kooning

“Untitled, 1942″Mark Rothko

The progression of a painter’s work as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity.. toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea.. and the idea and the observer.. To achieve this clarity is inevitably to be understood.”
Mark Rothko