1. Gesture or "Action" painting key decade: 1940 into 1950s
   1. Willem de Kooning, b. Netherlands 1904, to US in 20s, d. 1997
   2. Franz Kline, b. PA 1910 - 1962
   3. Robert Motherwell, b. CA 1915-1991
   4. "second generation" New York School - the problems of spontaneity & followers of de Kooning's "signature" style (example: Joan Mitchell)
2. "Field" Painting
   1. Mark Rothko (b. Marcus Rothkowitz in Russia, 1903, to US as child, suicide 1970)
   2. Barnett Newman (b. Baruch Newman 1905, d. 1970)
   3. Ad Reinhardt (b. Adolf 1913, d. 1967)

Slide List

de Kooning Pink Angels 1948
de Kooning Excavation 1950
de Kooning Gotham News 1955
de Kooning Woman I 1950-52
de Kooning Study for Woman
de Kooning Six Stages of Woman I
de Kooning Woman and Bicycle 1952-53
Guston Painting 1954
Hartigan The Masker 1954
Kline Mahoning 1956
Kline New York, NY 1953
Kline Installation view
Kline Dancer at Islip
Kline Figure Eight 1952
Motherwell Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive 1943
Motherwell Pancho Villa 1943
Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic 1953 (series through at least 1970s)
Motherwell Open series begun ca. 1968
Mitchell Red Painting #2 1954
Mitchell Hemlock 1956
Rothko Primeval Landscape 1945
Rothko Number 25 1947 (MoMA)
Rothko Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea 1944
Rothko Untitled (Multiform) 1946
Rothko Violet Black Orange Yellow White & Red 1949 (Guggenheim)
Rothko Red, Black, Brown on Maroon 1963
Rothko The Harvard Murals ca. 1963
Rothko "Rothko" Chapel (Houston, St. Thomas University, Institute for Religion/ de Menil family) 1970
Newman Broken Obelisk 1963-67 installed outside the "Rothko Chapel"
Newman Untitled 1945
Newman The Command 1946
Newman Cathedra 1951
Newman Vir Heroicus Sublimis 1950-51
Newman Stations of the Cross 1965-66
Newman Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue 1966
Reinhardt Untitled collage 1939
Reinhardt Abstract Painting Grey 1950
Reinhardt Red Painting 1952
Reinhardt Abstract Painting Blue 1953
Reinhardt Abstract Painting No. 5 1962

Willem deKooning, Pink Angels, 1945
Willem deKooning, Excavation, 1950

In achieving his first, "all-over" abstractions, deKooning shifted from representing the body to "burying" it in his sensual strokes of paint.

Willem deKooning, Study for Woman
Willem deKooning, Six Stages of Woman I
Willem deKooning, Woman I

"Flesh is what paint is for." -deKooning

Even as he was painting the abstractions, deKooning returned to the figure.

Willem deKooning, Gotham News

Critics saw "the Women" as a regression, and celebrated deKooning's non-objective works. These were the kinds of paintings that inspired a whole "second generation" of Action painters.

Franz Kline, Installation view

Kline came to his gestural style rather late (around 1950). Scale and size were important in conveying the air of spontaneity.

Franz Kline, Dancer at Islip, 10 3/4x7 1/2"
Franz Kline, Figure Eight, 1952

Were they truly spontaneous, the record of an explosive event?

Robert Motherwell, Pancho Villa, 1943
Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 1953

Motherwell retained links to the body even in paintings perceived as abstract.

Philip Guston, Painting, 1954
Joan Mitchell, Red Painting #2, 1954
Grace Hartigan, The Masker, 1954

Classic and second-generation New York School tended toward gesture as repetitve process, or gesture as style.

Mark Rothko, Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, 1944
Mark Rothko, Untitled (Multiform), 1946
Mark Rothko, Violet,Black,Orange,Yellow on White and Red, 1949

Through Surrealism and the experience of Still's paintings, Rothko achieved his "signature style." Some scholars believe a covert figuration remains in these landscape-like abstractions.

Mark Rothko, panel from the "Rothko Chapel", Houston, 1964-67
Ad Reinhardt, Abtract Painting (Blue), 1953
Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51

The success of Field painting depended upon the patience and meditative frame of mind of the viewer. How was sublimitiy invoked by these paintings?