Global Abstraction

Question 1

What are Harold Rosenberg’s key ideas in his article “American Action Painters” (1952)?

Answer 1

• Loose group of American painters was creating a new type of abstract art
• The canvas is an arena and instead of an image the painting is an EVENT
• The value of this art is not the aesthetic result but “the way the artist organizes his emotional and intellectual energy as if he were in a living situation”

Question 2

For Rosenberg, why are the American Action Painters abstract?

Answer 2

Recognizable objects must be removed because they get in the way of the act of painting

Question 3

Jackson Pollock’s birth and death years

Answer 3

1912-1956.

Question 4

What are some significations influences on Pollock?

Answer 4

Cubism, Surrealism, Native American art, and Mexican Muralism

Question 5

What was Pollock’s experience with Surrealist techniques?

Answer 5

Was treated for alcoholism and treatment included automatic drawings to explore his unconscious

Question 6

How did Pollock paint?

Answer 6

Lied canvas on the floor to work from all sides and dripped painting from turkey-basters, sticks, paintbrushes.

Question 7

Franz Kline birth and death years

Answer 7

1910-1962.

Question 8

How did Kline begin art-making?

Answer 8

Worked as cartoonist for his high school newspaper and later attended Boston University’s School of Art (1931-35). Then Art Students League and moved to London.

Question 9

How did Kline begin painting abstract-ly?q

Answer 9

Met Willem de Kooning in 1943 and later Pollock and Guston. C. 1947 Kline abandoned figuration prompted by de Kooning.