Abstract
The paper explains that an abstract artist expresses his/her own viewpoint or perspective through re-shaping the natural world until it reflects a specific ideal or principle. The paper discusses the artwork of Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollack, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Stuart Davis who all stand as American masters of abstract expressionism. The paper then shows how these artists created a new and sometimes shocking artistic style that went completely against traditional forms of expression.

From the Paper
"After World War II in 1945, expressionist artists in the United States began to assert their own individual personalities through their artwork, such as personal identities and even their own psychological makeup. Although expressionism can be traced back to artists like Gauguin and Van Gogh in the late 19th century, American expressionists in the 1950's and 1960's "set themselves apart from the earlier artists by deciding to do away with the human figure" (de la Croix & Tansey, 769) as the one true representative of natural beauty. Some of these artists fall into a category known as figural expressionism, while others have been designated as purely abstract artists."

Tags:Hans, Hofmann, Jackson, Pollack, Franz, Kline, Willem, de, Kooning, Mark, Rothko, Stuart, Davis

Abstract
This paper discusses the abstract painting 'Opaque Harmony' by Richard Pousette-Dart. Pousette-Dart's work suffered from obscurity because it could not compete successfully with paintings of other abstract expressionist artists of his time. But his work has recently received some attention from art critics who feel that his paintings are good examples of abstract art with a touch spirituality and mysticism.

From the Paper
" Willem de Kooning is a Dutch-American painter who was born in 1904 at Rotterdam and who first studied art in Amsterdam. He later studied under the avant-garde artist Bernard Romein. He came to the United States in 1926, and his work at the time was conservative and traditional. He soon joined the circle of Arshile Gorky and other artists prominent in the abstract expressionist movement. Under that influence, de Kooning started to experiment in advanced techniques of abstraction derived from Kandinsky and the late Cubism of Picasso.
In the 1930s, de Kooning painted in several manners at the same time. He produced portraits and figure studies seemed to suggest the late works of Giacometti. De Kooning stands out from his contemporaries by being the only one to make the human figure, first male and then female, a central theme of his work..."

Tags:ART: GENERAL

From the Paper
"Helen Frankenthaler was an important member of the second generation of American Abstract Expressionists. Her painting The Bay (1963), in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts (acquisition number 65.60), demonstrates an important phase in the evolution of her style that was also the beginning of an important development in abstract expressionist method.

"Frankenthaler was born in 1928, the daughter of a New York Supreme Court justice, and attended private schools in New York City. At Bennington College in Vermont Frankenthaler studied first under the painter Rufino Tamayo but, realizing she was succeeding simply because "I made such good Tamayos," the artist began to study with the American cubist painter Paul Freeley whose influence kept her interested in cubism for several years (Frankenthaler 28). After graduation her exposure to the..."

Abstract
This paper looks at the life and career of Lee Krasner (1908-84). It discusses how Krasner occupied a unique historical position as the only woman among the so-called 'first generation' of Abstract Expressionists and how she was ignored, stifled and underrated and gave up much of her own career for the benefit of her artist husband, Jackson Pollock (1912-56). It provides a biography of her life from her birth in Brooklyn to immigrant Orthodox Jews through her education at the National Academy of Design to becoming friends with the painters and critics who came to form the Abstract expressionist movement. It evaluates the reasons for her exclusion and obscurity and compares some of the 1940s paintings by Krasner and Pollock to demonstrate the difference in approach between his expressionism and her more careful attention to structure and surface.

From the Paper
"The principal reason that is usually given for Krasner's relative obscurity as a painter is that her husband's brilliance pulled all the attention away from her. But, as Krasner herself said, "The cliche is that Lee is overshadowed by her husband and that's easy and we don't have to think about it. It's outrageous" (quoted in "Lee Krasner" 4). The conditions that created her exclusion preceded her meeting with Pollock and continued long after he was dead. They were endemic to the ways in which the society at large thought about women and the ways the abstract expressionists and their friends thought about art. Krasner recalled that among the painters and intellectuals women in general were "treated like cattle" and from the beginning of her association with the intellectuals and painters she was treated with a curious combination of friendliness and grudging respect, but her work received the worst treatment in being all but completely ignored (Anfam 15). The supposedly advanced intellectuals of the 1940s shared common American prejudices about women."

Tags:expressionism, pollock

Abstract
, the author comes to the understanding that there is a fine line in what painting actually says. All of Lasker's work is art, no matter how ambiguous it is. In one sense, he is the abstract expressionist struggling for the authentic gesture and the distracted student doodling on a notepad. There appear to be unconscious scrawls but also controlled elements that are carefully integrated into a larger composition.

Abstract
A clear reflection of the mindset of individuals suffering from alienation would be the dystopian novels of the mid-twentieth century. This paper examines how Aldous Huxley and George Orwell are concrete examples of dystopian novel writers and how the books "Brave New World" and "1984" present fictional totalitarian societies in which modern technology and the techniques of human engineering operate to destroy human freedom. It also discusses how the visual arts of the mid-twentieth century echoed the age's preoccupation with isolation, loneliness and anxiety using as an example the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.

From the Paper
"In the mid-twentieth century, humankind was confronted with the destructive applications of modern technology. The realities of trench warfare, the concentration camps, and Hiroshima made it difficult to maintain that human beings were rational by nature, that technology would work to advance human happiness, and that the universe was governed by a benevolent God. (Fiero 70) As the modern individual became estranged from "God and reason" (Fiero 70), he became the victim of a condition of "anxious withdrawal" (Fiero 70) which is termed alienation. This alienation or state of perpetual anxiety and loneliness in the face of the dehumanizing aspects of technology resonates in the literature and art of the aforementioned period."

Tags:aldous, dystopian, george, huxley, jackson, orwell, pollock, 1984

Abstract
Jackson Pollack was of the one of the foremost artistic innovators of the 20th century. This paper explains how his style and creative techniques inspired a generation of artists and had a lasting and profound affect on contemporary art. It discusses how his later work is credited with initiating the Abstract Expressionist School of modern art. His style and method of painting was a radical departure from the type of painting that merely represented or "copied" the world and objects that the artist encountered. The writer points out that Pollock developed a technique and approach to painting and produced works of art that were a more subtle and complex expression and response to the world around him and his own psyche.

From the Paper
"Jackson Pollack was born in 1912. He studied at the Art Students League in New York City and was influenced and by the work and of Charles Benton. His early works were similar in many ways to the naturalistic style of Benton. At this early stage of his career he was essentially a representational artist. In other words, his art contained objects and elements that were familiar and recognizable and part of the ordinary world. However, the early half of the Twentieth Century was a time of radical thought and experimentation in modern art and Pollack was influenced by modern experimentation and new trends in art, such as Surrealism and other European art. He began to adopt a more abstract and "expressive" style of painting, as can be seen in works such as The She-Wolf, painted in 1943. (Jackson Pollack .1912-1956) Other works such as Pasiphae and Totem 1, painted in 1944, also show the influence of the Surrealists."

Tags:expressionalism, art

Abstract
This paper explains how Georgia O'Keeffe was a distinguished artist whose works illustrate the possibilities of potential of every artist determined to succeed. It shows how she was instrumental in exposing an artistic style that became dominant in America during the 20th century. Her work is often described as abstract, expressionistic, and passionate. O'Keeffe's life is filled with accomplishments that can be attributed to her determination to express herself as well as possible through her paintings. She was courageous and passionate, and these qualities shine through her vast collection of diverse paintings.

From the Paper
"O'Keeffe was one of the first female painters to become recognized for her work, which is quite an achievement considering that when she began painting, women were not allowed to vote. (Spangenburg 4) O'Keeffe's early exposure to the women's suffrage movement is perhaps one of the most influential factors in her life. According to John Kehoe, this independence was present in every aspect of her life. He says, "She made most of her own clothes. She did not drink, avoided sugar, took a quantity of vitamins, and abjured all drugs, medicinal and otherwise: Her cure for a headache was wrapping a warm scarf around her head" (Kehoe). Even her personal life illustrates a dogged individuality."

Tags:painting, feminism

Abstract
This paper discusses the lives of Louise Bourgeois and Louise Nevelson by focusing on two examples of their artwork, which demonstrates feminism's entanglement with modern art in the United States. The author investigates, from an art history and cultural context, one representative large-scale work from each artist: Bourgeois' 1996-1997 sculpture "Spider" from the National Gallery of Art and Nevelson's most famous sculpture 1958 "Sky Cathedral" in the Smithsonian American Art Museum . The paper discusses how each of these two works challenges traditional notions of the "feminine" in positing new ideas of what it means to be female in the 20th century. The paper includes color photographs.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Louise Bourgeois' Spider
Louise Nevelson's Sky Cathedral
Comparison
The Sculptures in Context
Conclusion

From the Paper
""Sky Cathedral" can readily be seen to fit in with the tradition of Abstract Expressionist painting in America; indeed, it was executed in the 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism as a movement was in full swing. What is unusual, of course, is the fact that it is not a painting at all, but a sculpture. Still, one sees traces of the influence of Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, and other artists who used a large-scale "all over" form of expression in their works. At the same time, one sees traces of the Cubist influence in this sculpture, as well."

Tags:male-dominated, abstract expressionist, motif surrealist vagina