Abstract Expressionism
02.03.2017 - 06.04.2017
In the “age of anxiety” surrounding the Second World War and the years of free jazz and Beat poetry, artists like Pollock, Rothko, and de Kooning broke from accepted conventions to unleash a new confidence in painting. Abstract Expressionism was born from the common experience of artists living in 1940s New York, although they were friends and colleagues, each of them had their own unique style. Unlike what came before with Cubism and Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism did not appear to follow a set formula. This diversity is a celebration of the individual artists’ freedom to express themselves.
Abstract Expressionism meant a watershed moment in the evolution of 20th-century art, yet, remarkably, there has been no major survey in Europe of the movement since 1959. With over 130 paintings, sculptures, and photographs from public and private collections across the world, this ambitious exhibition encompasses masterpieces by the most acclaimed American artists associated with the movement–among them, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Phillip Guston, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, David Smith, and Clyfford Still, as well as lesser-known but no less vital artists.
The selection aims to re-evaluate Abstract Expressionism, recognizing that though the subject is often perceived to be unified, in reality it was a highly complex, fluid, and many-sided phenomenon. Likewise, it revises the notion of Abstract Expressionism as based solely in New York City by addressing such figures on the West Coast as Sam Francis, Mark Tobey and Minor White.
Exhibition organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London with the collaboration of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Jackson Pollock
Male and Female, 1942–43
Oil on canvas
186.1 x 124.3 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mr and Mrs H. Gates Lloyd, 1974
Photo: Philadelphia Museum of Art
© The Pollock-Krasner Foundation VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
The Exhibition
Arshile Gorky
Water of the Flowery Mill, 1944
Oil on canvas
107.3 x 123.8 cm
Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. George A. Hearn Fund, 1956 (56.205.1)
© Estate of Arshile
Gorky/VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Photo: © 2016. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence
Willem de Kooning
Untitled (Woman in Forest), ca. 1963–64
Oil on paper, mounted on Masonite
73.7 x 86.4 cm
Private collection
© The Willem de Kooning Foundation, New York /VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Clyfford Still
PH-950, 1950
Oil on canvas
233.7 x 177.8 cm
Courtesy Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, Colorado
© City and County of Denver, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Joan Mitchell
Mandres, 1961–62
Oil on canvas
222 x 200.7 cm
Private collection.
Courtesy McClain Gallery
© Estate of Joan Mitchell
Jackson Pollock
Mural, 1943
Oil and casein on canvas
243.2 x 603.2 cm
The University of Iowa Museum of Art. Gift of Peggy Guggenheim, 1959.6
© The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
David Smith
Star Cage, 1950
Painted and brushed steel
114 x 130.2 x 65.4 cm
Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
The John Rood Sculpture Collection
© The Estate of David Smith, VAGA, New York / VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Mark Rothko
Yellow Band, 1956
Oil on canvas
218.8 x 201.9 cm
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Sheldon Art Association, Thomas C. Woods Memorial, N-130.1961
© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Photo: © Sheldon Museum of Art
Did you
know that...?
WHAT IS DIDAKTIKA?
Didaktika allows visitors to further explore the content of exhibitions through educational spaces and special activities. On this occasion, the focus is on the crucial role of the United States government during the mid-20th century in supporting its culture and art.
THE FEDERAL ART PROJECT (FAP) IN THE UNITED STATES
After the crash of the New York stock market in 1929, President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented a series of projects and programs to deal with the Great Depression and rebuild the United States’ economy. In an effort to provide income to the millions of unemployed citizens, the government established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 to provide jobs in public works all over the country.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT: THE WORLD AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR
After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the world was divided into two opposing blocks: the Western block, led by the United States who defended a democratic political system, a capitalist economy, and liberal ideology; and the Communist block, headed by the Soviet Union who encouraged a political, social, and economic system based on collective property.
ART AND CULTURE: FROM PARIS TO NEW YORK
During the Second World War, New York welcomed dealers, and art critics from Europe who had crossed the Atlantic, fleeing totalitarian regimes. Years of war had left a large part of Europe in ruins, and within this context, New York City rose up as a new artistic center, from where new trends spread.