Abstract Expressionist New York: The Big Picture at MoMA The Museum of Modern Art on artrepublic.com

Organized in a loose chronology, intermittently interrupted by monographic galleries that allow for the in-depth study of an individual artist’s practice, the installation opens with a selection of paintings and drawings that attest to the acutely self-conscious sense of new beginnings present in the work of individuals such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, they and their peers—not yet a cohesive group—created imagery that evoked primitive man or ancient myth, and conjured an aquatic or geological pre-human world.

The distinctive materials, techniques, and approaches developed and practiced by the Abstract Expressionists can be seen in a number of other works from the late 1940s and early 1950s. For Painting (1948), Willem de Kooning used oil and enamel sign paint to create a densely packed painting in which the paint drips, bleeds, congeals, or dissolves into delicate streaks. Lee Krasner’s Untitled (1949) shows that she applied thick paint—sometimes directly from the tube—in rhythmic and repetitive strokes, giving equal attention to every inch of the canvas and creating an allover composition. Bradley Walker Tomlin, in Number 20 (1949), and Adolph Gottlieb, in Man Looking at Woman (1949), distributed imagery evoking the alphabet and hieroglyphics evenly across their canvases.

MoMA’s practice of making in-depth acquisitions of work by artists that its curators judged to be of greatest importance was complemented by acquisitions of smaller numbers of works by other artist who played roles too significant to be forgotten. The Big Picture includes paintings and sculptures by more than 20 artists.

The exhibition includes some 30 items from the MoMA Archives, documenting the relation of the Museum to Abstract Expressionism. Materials represent the institution’s influential series of “Americans” exhibitions, organized by Dorothy C. Miller, which included several Abstract Expressionist artists in four of its iterations. In addition, documentation regarding the internationally circulating New American Painting show (also organized by Miller) is presented. This important exhibition travelled to eight European cities in 1958-59 and propelled the homegrown Abstract Expressionist movement onto the international art scene. A third section includes photographs of artists and their own statements and letters. Highlights include: exhibition catalogues, installation photographs, newsclippings, and ephemera; photographs of artists in the studio with their artworks; a letter from Robert Motherwell to Miller describing the four themes of his art (automatic means, pure abstractions, political or a kind of “disasters” series, and intimate pictures), a letter from Ad Reinhardt to Miller recommending a different installation of his paintings, and a statement by Grace Hartigan identifying her subject as the “vulgar and vital in American life, and the possibilities of its transcendence into the beautiful.”

OPENING HOURS: 

Image Credits: 

Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956) One: Number 31, 1950. 1950 Oil and enamel paint on canvas 8' 10" x 17' 5 5/8" (269.5 x 530.8 cm) Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection Fund (by exchange) è 2010 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Mark Rothko (American, born Latvia. 1903-1970) No. 3/No. 13. 1949 Oil on canvas7' 1 3/8" x 65" (216.5 x 164.8 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bequest of Mrs. Mark Rothko through  The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. è 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Willem de Kooning (American, born The Netherlands, 1904-1997). Woman, I. 1950–52.  Oil on canvas. 6' 3 7/8" x 58" (192.7 x 147.3 cm).  The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase. è 2010 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York