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Definition: abstract expressionism from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary

(1951) : an artistic movement of the mid-20th century comprising diverse styles and techniques and emphasizing esp. an artist's liberty to convey attitudes and emotions through nontraditional and usu. nonrepresentational means

abstract expressionist n or adj, often cap A&E


abstract expressionism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
movement of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the mid-1940s and attained singular prominence in American art in the following decade; also called action painting and the New York school. It was the first important school in American painting to declare its independence from European styles and to influence the development of art abroad. Arshile Gorky first gave impetus to the movement. His paintings, derived at first from the art of Picasso , Miró , and surrealism , became more personally expressive. Jackson Pollock 's turbulent yet elegant abstract paintings, which were created by spattering paint on huge canvases placed on the floor, brought abstract expressionism before a hostile public. Willem de Kooning 's first one-man show in 1948 established him as a highly influential artist. His intensely complicated abstract paintings of the 1940s were followed by images of Woman , grotesque versions of buxom womanhood, which were virtually unparalleled in the sustained…
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Mainly US art movement in which the creative process itself is examined and explored. It is neither wholly abstract nor wholly expressionist. The term originally applied to paintings created (1945-55) by about 15 artists from the New York School. Although very different in temperament and style, …
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Full text Article Abstract expressionism

From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
The dominant movement in US painting in the late 1940s and 1950s, characterized by the conveying of powerful emotions through the sensuous qualities of paint. The term was originally used in 1919 to describe certain paintings by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) but in its current sense was first used…
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Full text Article abstract expressionism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
movement of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the mid-1940s and attained singular prominence in American art in the following decade; also called action painting and the New York school. It was the first important school in American painting to declare its independence from…
| 493 words
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Full text Article abstract expressionism

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Movement in US painting that was the dominant force in the country's art in the late 1940s and 1950s. It was characterized by the sensuous use of paint, often on very large canvases, to convey powerful emotions. Some of the artists involved painted pure abstract pictures, but others often retained…
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An art movement begun in the United States in the 1940s by Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, Abstract Expressionism favored the use of intense color and texture. Paint was applied to the canvas in dynamic slashes, stripes, and splotches that prompted…
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Full text Article Abstract Expressionism

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Movement in U.S. painting that began in the late 1940s. Its development was influenced by the radical work of Arshile Gorky and Hans Hofmann and by the immigration in the late 1930s and early ’40s of many European avant-garde artists to New York. The Abstract Expressionist movement itself is…
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Full text Article ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

From The Reader's Companion to American History
Abstract expressionism, the most influential and original movement in American art, developed in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. It first gained public attention in 1951 with an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art and became the dominant international style after another moma exhibit, The New…
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Full text Article Abstract Expressionism

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms
The consciously American style of art which emerged in New York during the 1940s and remained dominant until the late 1950s. It was essentially an amalgam of ideas borrowed from Surrealism (most of whose leaders lived in exile in the US during the war years) and more strictly American concepts about…
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Full text Article Abstract Expressionism

From A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes
(c. 1948) If only because it emphasizes esthetic qualities, this term has come to be the most acceptable epithet for the innovative painting that became prominent in NEW YORK CITY in the late 1940s (and was thus sometimes called the NEW YORK SCHOOL). Drawing not only from SURREALISM but from JAZZ- …
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Full text Article Abstract Expressionism

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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