Abstract Expressionism

'Abstract Expressionism' emerged in New York in the years immediately following the Second World War and quickly became one of the most powerful and influential movements in the history of modern art. Building on developments in European avant-garde art of the preceding decades, a wave of artists such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still developed a new abstraction that was simultaneously elemental and sophisticated. Though several of Abstract Expressionism's key figures were emigres, including Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann and Arshile Gorky, it was art's first definitively American movement, establishing New York as the new capital of artistic innovation for years to come while creating a visual language that would soon reach to the farthest corners of the globe. The enduring importance of 'Abstract Expressionism' reflects the boundless ambition of its practitioners and their engagement with the key intellectual currents of their time, including existentialism and Jungian mysticism. For many critics and art historians, their achievements represent the high-water mark of the modernist movement begun almost a century earlier. Abstract Expressionism continues to occupy a distinguished place not only in history books and museum collections but also in the popular consciousness, where its enduring appeal is testament to its profound achievements.