Abstract Art – Key Works
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Wassily Kandinsky
Improvisation 7 1910
Style: German
Expressionism
Kasimir Malevich Black Square
[1913] 1923-29
Oil on canvas 106.2 x 106.5 cm.
Style: Russian Suprematism
These three artists, working in different
countries, were each the centre of a
group of artists who picked up on their
ideas and approach to abstraction. These
ideas very rapidly spread internationally
and filtered down into the fields of
architecture and design.
It should be noted that each was a
trained artist and that all three were
influenced by a “fringe”
religious/philosophical movement called
Theosophy.
Piet Mondrian
Composition No. 10 1939-1942
Oil on canvas 80 x 73 cm
Style: Dutch – De Stijl
All three artists were aiming at a kind of
spiritual purity in paint.
Jackson Pollock
Lavender Mist: Number 1 1950
221 x 300 cm
Style: American Abstract
Expressionism
(Also termed “Action Painting)
Willem de Kooning
Woman V 1952-53
154.5 (h) x 114.5 (w) cm
Style: American Abstract
Expressionism
Mark Rothko
Orange and Yellow 1956
231 x 180 cm
Style: American Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism developed after WWII
in New York.
It was influenced by the arrival of European
artists like the Surrealists as refugees.
The three artists included here are very
different in style and their work is clearly
recognisable, one from the other.
Pollock is spontaneously improvising, making
totally abstract paintings with an all-over
composition, using splashed and dripped paint
to create overlaid webs of paint.
De Kooning based his work upon an
underlying Cubist drawing, working over that
with gestural brushstrokes in strong, contrasting
colours.
Rothko used stacked, soft-edged rectangles of
subtly modulated colour to create colour fields
that influenced some of the next generation
of abstract painters.
Frank Stella emerged as an artist at
about 1960. His approach is not
expressionist, but explores aspects
of pattern and the interaction of
colour within a geometric
structure.
This has been termed “Post
Painterly Abstraction” by longwinded critics. It means that the
artist is using “graphic” techniques
more related to design, rather than
using the expressive qualities of
paint.
Frank Stella Hyena Stomp 1962
Oil on canvas
1956 x 1956 mm
painting
Australian Abstraction
Roy de Maistre
Rhythmic Composition in YellowGreen Minor 1919
Grace Crowley
Abstract painting 1950
Ralph BALSON Painting (Matter series),
Sydney, 1962/3 Enamel on board, 122 x 153cm
Roger Kemp
Untitled c.1963
Acrylic on masonite
91.5 x 122cm
David Aspden
Abstract gouache on paper
71.0 x 53.0 cm