1. Avant-garde after 1945

2. Abstract expressionism
• It developed between 1940 and 1960.
• It was a movement after WWII.
• After seeing the images and photographs of the
war, artists decided to explore colour and forms.
• American artists wanted to compete with the
European ones and now the World Art Centre
passed from Europe to the United States.
• In the avant-gardes developing in the US there
were many European refugees.

3. Abstract expressionism
• Artists combined emotional intensity with the
individualism of expressionists and created an
art full of anti-figurative images.
• They can be divided into two groups:
– Action Painting and
– Colour Field and Hard-Edge.
• These movements found parallelism with other
European movements.

4. Abstract expressionism
• Action Painting term was used for the first
time to refer to Jackson Pollock’s work.
• This artist, the same as Franz Kline or
Willem de Kooning, used his psyke as the
dynamic energy of his works.
• The canvas was considered as a field and
painting was something irrational,
instinctive, impulsive.

5. Abstract expressionism
Pollock
De Kooning
Kline

6. Jackson Pollock
• He made works of
great format using the
“dripping” technique.
• In doing that kind of
works, he was
influenced by the
surrealists.

7. Jackson Pollock
• He used to put the
canvas on the floor and
with a brush he started
dripping painting or,
sometimes, he could
throw the paint directly
from the container.
• The canvas was not in
tension.
• Huge formats required a
great control of the work.
Number 1

8. Jackson Pollock
• These paintings
required certain
gestures and this is why
it is considered that
through dripping the
artist represented his
sensations and due to
this the name given to
this movement: abstract
expressionism.

9. Jackson Pollock
• After 1950 he
changed his style to
begin doing figuration
in black and white in a
virtuous way.
• When he knew Peggy
Guggenheim this was
essential for his
career.
• He died in a car
crash.
Deepness
Ocean Grayness

10. Colour Field and Hard Edge
• At the beginning of the 60s there were
two different trends in American
abstraction.
• Colour Field used big colourful
surfaces, without any other element that
could be distinguished by the eye.
• Colour was used without perspective,
giving the impression of enormity.
• The shades of the colours dissolved on
the canvas.

11. Colour Field and Hard Edge
• Hard-Edge is the term coined to describe some
works in which atmospheres of colour are reinforced.
• The works have lines and limits well defined, to clarify
the compositions.
• The most representative artists of this movement are:
– Rothko,
– Barnet Newman,
– Ellsworth Kelly,
– Morris Louis,
– Kenneth Nolan.

12. Colour Field and Hard Edge
Rothko
Barnet
Newman

13. Colour Field and Hard Edge
Ellsword Kelly
Morris Louis
Kenneth Nolan

14. Mark Rothko
• American painter of
Russian origins
• Autodidact
• At the beginning he
did works connected
with social realism
• He received the
influence of
surrealism.

15. Mark Rothko
• He based his inspiration
in primitive religions.
• His most representative
works are abstract: big
rectangles, without a
clear definition, with a
dark colour combined
with a light or vivid one.
The combination was
made to provoke feelings.
Number 10

16. Mark Rothko
• The colour areas always
have non defined
contours and they are not
cut on the canvas.
• The main composition is
horizontal as long as lines
are concerned, and
vertical in the orientation
of the canvas.

17. Mark Rothko
• In his works the horizon
line does not appear and
any reference to a
landscape is completely
eliminated.
• The colour areas
represent an atmosphere
that is not in contact with
reality and does not
depict any space.

18. Mark Rothko
• Lan ilunenetan ere
argiaren kezka duela
dirudi, bai era fisikoan
zein sinbolikoan.
• Irudia mundu
traszendente batetara
irekitzen den leiho bat
da.
• Argia goraipatzen du
era kontenplatibo eta
erreligioso batean.

19. Pop Art
• It is a passive conception of social reality.
• It does not represent the creation of the popular
classes but their lack of creativity.
• The beginnings of this movement can be found
in the work of these authors:
– Rauschenberg and
– Jasper Johns,
who are considered as neo-Dadaist.
• Painting becomes again something that remains
something else.

20. Pop Art
Rauschenberg
Jasper Johns
Christo
Oldenburg

21. Pop Art
• The fact of taking a real thing and put it into a
painting is a way of manipulating reality.
• Being a urban art, images appear in the canvas
as in jail, acquiring a phantasmagoria image.
• These artists, the same as the Dadaist before,
take elements from reality and they incorporate
them into their works.
• In their work we can find glued things and
photos combined with painting.

22. Pop Art
• The language is that of publicity: easy to be
understood.
• The most representative artist is Warhol and
in addition to him the following artists:
– Rosenquists, with elements of daily life;
– Tom Wesselman, he incorporates other elements,
creating installations;
– Roy Lichtenstein, he represents the world as a
comic;
– Claes Oldenburg, huge sculptures of daily objects;
– Christo, he wraps up buildings and natural
elements.

23. Pop Art
Lichtenstein
Rosenquist
Wesselman

24. Andy Warhol
• He made of art a
product of social
mass consumption
• He is not famous just
because he portrayed
myths but because
his work became a
myth for people.

25. Andy Warhol
• He used techniques of
industrial production.
• He created “The Factory”
in which actions, films
and other ways of
expression were
organised.
• Consumption things
became the target of his
work.

26. Andy Warhol
• He understood people
from the stardom at
the same level as
objects.
• He created series of
politicians and artists
and he treated them
in the same way.

27. Andy Warhol
• He used serigraphy
techniques.
• He resourced to
brilliant and
fluorescent colours
even when he was
depicting dark
scenes.
• Many times repeated
series with
characters using
them as things.

28. Minimalism
• Minimalism appeared in art in the 1950s and it
developed in the following two decades.
• It is a term to describe painting and sculpture
when there are characterised by their simplicity
in both content and form, and they lack of any
sign of personal expression.
• Minimalism aims at the spectator feeling their
work in an intense way, without distracters such
as composition, theme or other similar elements.

29. Minimalism
• Some of the works of Malevich and Duchamp
of the 1920 are considered as minimalist.
• The most famous artists of this movement are
American:
– Dan Flavin,
– Carl Andre,
– Ellsworth Kelly and
– Donald Judd
appeared against abstract expressionism
with their canvases of particular shape,
sculptures and installations.

30. Minimalism
• Minimalism is also linked to other
movements:
– Conceptual art because when the work is finished
is to create a theory,
– Pop Art with its fascination for the impersonal
– and Land Art which produces simple forms.
• Minimalism was successful and influential in
the 20th century.
• Representative authors are:
– Frank Stella eta
– Ellsword Kelly .

31. Minimalism
Judd
Frank Stella
Ellsworth Kelly

32. Donald Judd
• He started as a painter to
begin with low relieves in the
1960s and later to other kind of
relieves.
• Later he started doing
elements to be put in the wall
or on the floor being always
geometrical elements, without
any basis.
• The first works were made of
wood but them he started
using metal and sometimes in
colours.

33. Dan Flavin
• He made sculptures
of neon light.
• His aim was to create
atmospheres.
• He provoked changes
of visual perception.